V 


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I 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
AT   LOS  ANGELES 


COLLEGE 

AND 

COMMONWEALTH 


COLLEGE 

AND 

COMMONWEALTH 


AND  OTHER  EDUCATIONAL 
PAPERS    AND    ADDRESSES 


BY 
JOHN  HENRY  MacCRACKEN,  LL.D. 

President  of  Lafayette  College 


NEW  YORK 

THE  CENTURY  CO. 

1920 


Copyright,  1920,  by 
TuE  Century  Co. 


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7>  XVII 

I    XVIII 
I       XIX 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

1 


College  and  Commonwealth     .     .     . 

The  College  and  the  Individual    .      .  21 

The  College  of  Growth      ....  42 

Liberty  and  Cooperation 58 

Arms  and  Archimedes 81 

War  and  Education 95 

Education  for  the  New  Era      .     .     .  112 

The  College  and  the  Shadow  of  War  120 

Pooling  of  College  Interests  as  a  War 
Measure 129 

Federal  Leadership  in  Education  .      .   146 

A  National  Department  of  Education  162 

Why  the  Trust  Idea  Is  not  Applicable 
TO  Education      . 168 

Defining  the  College  Man  ....  184 

The  College  Man  and  Freedom       .      .  203 

The  American  College  of  To-Day  .      .  214 

Business  Side  of  College  Administra- 
tion       236 

College  Fellowship 257 

The  College  President 265 

The  Education  of  Women    ....  275 


351876 


Contents 

cnArTi;R  page 

XX     Broader  Education  op  Engineers    .     .  288 

XXI     Educational  Rese,\rcii 295 

XXII     Education  for  Business 305 

XXIII  A  Graduate  School  for  the  Metrop- 

olis       313 

XXIV  Scientific    Method    and    Therapeutic 

Impulse 330 

XXV  Fraternity  Ideals 336 

XXVI  Dedication  of  Baker  Hall    ....  341 

XXVII  Religion  and  Education 351 

XXVIII  The  Forward  Looking  Presbyterian    .  358 

XXIX    The  Religious  Element  in  Education 

— A  Necessity 373 

XXX     The  Christian  College 385 

XXXI     A  New  Westminster 396 

XXXII  George  Taylor — Patriot       ....  405 

XXXIII  The  Lesson  op  Valley  Forge     .     .     .  413 


COLLEGE 

AND 

COMMONWEALTH 


COLLEGE  AND  COMMONWEALTH 

COMING  in  this  second  year  of  world  war,  to 
a  college  founded  largely  by  the  efforts  of  a 
great  American  Secretary  of  War,  who  wrote  into 
its  original  charter  specific  mention  of  military 
tactics  as  a  subject  of  instruction;  to  a  college 
whose  seal  bears  the  epaulet  of  a  great  soldier  of 
freedom  (with  a  somewhat  contradictory  legend — 
Veritas  liber abit) ;  to  a  college  whose  name  is  that 
of  a  great  Frenchman,  beloved  of  Washington  and 
remembered  by  the  American  people  as  General 
Lafayette  rather  than  as  the  marquis  of  high  line- 
age, as  statesman  or  as  reformer;  to  a  college  situ- 
ated in  this  narrow  valley  which  resounds  day  and 
night  mth  the  straining,  agonizing  efforts  of  lo- 
comotives, to  set  forward  on  their  way  of  destruc- 
tion tons  of  shells  and  projectiles,  it  might  be  ex- 
pected that  I  should  speak  of  education  for  war, 
or  appraise  the  place  of  the  college  in  a  civilization 
where  the  steel  shell  seems  final  arbiter  and  the 
scholar's  position  no  whit  different  from  that  of 
Archimedes  in  Syracuse  twenty-two  centuries  ago, 
whose  scholar's  boast,  ''Give  me  where  I  may 
stand  and  I  will  move  the  world,"  was  quickly 
brought  to  naught  by  the  ignorant  soldier  of  Mar- 
cellus. 


Inaugural  address  as  President  of  Lafayette  College,  October 
20,   1915. 


1 


College  and  Commonwealth 

But  tlio  time  is  not  yet  ripe  for  such  appraise- 
ment, nor  can  the  still,  small  voice  of  God  be 
heard  until  the  rock-blasting  mnds,  the  earthquake 
and  the  fires  have  passed.  The  times  are  too  much 
out  of  joint,  passion  still  too  rampant  in  porch 
and  grove  to  attempt  at  this  time  the  answer  to 
that  cry  which  finds  echo  in  all  our  hearts  to-day, 
"Who  ^xi\\  build  the  city  of  our  dream,  where 
beauty  shall  abound  and  truth  avail,  with  patient 
love  that  is  too  wise  for  strife ;  who  now  wall  speed 
us  to  its  gate  of  peace  and  reassure  us  on  our 
doubtful  road?" 

I  limit  myself,  therefore,  to  the  topic  of  college 
and  commonwealth,  since  in  Pennsylvania,  as  in 
Massachusetts,  this  term  has  been  preserved  and 
used  to  designate  a  society  which  is  supreme  in 
all  matters  except  the  right  to  make  war,  to  coin 
money,  to  maintain  a  postal  service,  to  control 
commerce  beyond  its  borders  and  such  other  mat- 
ters of  inter-state  concern  as  have  been  relin- 
quished for  the  general  welfare  under  articles  of 
federation  or  a  constitution.  I  use  the  term  in 
this  sense  to-day,  thus  excluding  from  considera- 
tion all  matters  of  war  and  peace,  all  matters  which 
are,  or  some  day  will  be,  subjects  of  international 
agreement. 

I  do  not  use  ''commonwealth"  with  reference 
to  the  commonwealth  of  Pennsylvania  alone.  The 
gods  of  education  are  not  local  deities.  Our  view 
across  state  lines  is  as  uninterrupted  as  the  view 
from  yonder  window  over  the  Pennsylvania 
boundary  to  the  hills  of  New  Jersey.     The  com- 


College  and  Commonwealth 

monwealth  of  letters  has  no  distinctive  color  on 
the  map,  nor  can  you  learn  from  any  geography 
its  boundaries.  As  the  wind  bloweth  where  it 
listeth,  and  thou  canst  not  tell  whence  it  cometh 
or  whither  it  goeth,  so  of  our  common  intellectual 
heritage,  so  of  new  discoveries  in  the  world  of 
learning,  any  attempt  to  shut  them  up  to  this  or 
that  class,  color,  creed  or  country,  is  doomed  to 
fail. 

Thomas  Hobbes,  when  he  wrote  his  ''Levia- 
than," divided  it  into  four  parts — the  first  part, 
*'0f  Man,"  the  second  part,  ''Of  Common- 
wealth," the  third  part,  "Of  Christian  Common- 
wealth," the  fourth  part,  "Of  the  Kingdom  of 
Darkness."  They  would  make  four  excellent  sub- 
heads for  the  inaugural  discourse  of  a  college 
president.  Time  will  not  permit  me,  however,  to 
begin  as  Hobbes  began,  by  discussing  the  thoughts 
of  man  first  singly  and  then  in  train,  and,  as  I  do 
not  wish  these  remarks  to  grow  into  a  Leviathan, 
I  shall  not  attempt  to  discuss  either  the  "Chris- 
tian Commonwealth"  or  the  "Kingdom  of  Dark- 
ness." I  shall  speak  only  of  common  wealth  and 
of  that  very  important  item  of  our  common  wealth 
and  common  life,  the  American  college. 

Horace  Bushnell,  who  spoke  at  Yale  nearly  four 
score  years  ago  on  "The  True  Wealth  or  Weal 
of  Nations,"  said,  "What,  then,  it  is  time  for  us 
to  ask,  is  that  wealth  of  a  nation  which  includes 
its  weal  or  solid  well-being?  that  which  is  the  end 
of  all  genuine  policy  and  all  true  statesmanship? 
It  consists,  I  answer,  in  the  total  value  of  the  per- 

3 


College  and  Commonwealth 

sons  of  tlie  people.  National  wealth  is  personal, 
not  niatorial.  It  inehidos  the  natural  capacity,  the 
skill,  the  science,  the  bravery,  the  loyalty,  the 
moral  and  religious  worth  of  the  people.  The 
wealth  of  a  nation  is  in  the  breasts  of  its  sons." 
This  creed  and  its  corollary  as  phrased  by  Wash- 
ington, "Promote,  therefore,  as  an  object  of  pri- 
mary concern  the  means  of  education,"  is  the  rock 
upon  which  our  republic  is  builded.  The  commis- 
sion given  its  government  b}^  the  people  of  the 
commonwealth  of  Massachusetts  in  their  first  state 
constitution  has  been  reiterated  with  greater  or 
less  emphasis  in  all  our  commonwealths.  ''It 
shall  be  the  duty  of  all  legislators  and  magistrates 
in  all  future  periods  of  this  commonwealth  to 
cherish  the  interests  of  literature  and  all  semin- 
aries of  them,  especially  the  University  at  Cam- 
bridge, public  schools  and  grammar  schools  in  the 
to^vns,"  and  nobly  have  the  states  fulfilled  their 
commission.  To-day  in  a  coraononwealth  where 
the  people  have  raised  a  schoolmaster  to  the  office 
of  chief  magistrate  of  the  commonwealth,  in  a  na- 
tion where  the  people  have  raised  a  schoolmaster 
to  the  office  of  chief  magistrate  of  the  nation,  there 
is  little  danger  that  education  will  be  assigned  any 
less  important  a  place  in  the  polity  of  the  state. 
In  the  State  of  New  York  the  past  summer  the 
constitutional  convention  gave  much  time  to  an 
attempt  to  define  the  relation  of  the  state  to  educa- 
tion. Decisions  of  the  (Courts  had  clearly  estab- 
lished the  authority  of  the  state  in  educational 
matters,  but  when  an  attempt  was  made  to  reduce 

4 


College  and  Commonwealth 

established  practice  to  a  theorem  and  to  state  it 
in  definite  terms,  it  was  found  impossible  to  find 
the  right  words  and  the  conclusion  of  the  whole 
matter  was  that  what  it  was  proposed  to  say  was 
better  left  to  the  unwritten  constitution.  To  write 
''education  is  a  state  function,"  it  was  pointed  out, 
is  either  to  say  what  does  not  need  saying,  or  to 
say  too  much.  The  discussion  in  the  convention 
indicated,  however,  not  only  that  the  American 
people  are  not  all  of  one  mind,  but  also  that  the 
American  people  as  a  whole  have  not  as  yet  given 
this  important  subject  that  searching  and  far- 
reaching  critical  examination  which  it  deserves. 
No  one  questions  that  education  is  a  function  of 
the  state ;  no  one  questions  that  the  state  may  con- 
trol the  chartering  of  colleges  and  universities  and 
prescribe  the  conditions  under  which  degrees  are 
to  be  given,  but  many  question  whether  education 
should  be  exclusively  a  state  function,  while  the 
great  majority  have  never  even  considered  where 
state  control  of  education  should  stop  and  the  free- 
dom of  private  teaching  begin.  Constitutions  and 
constitution  writers  are  better  at  negative  state- 
ments than  at  positive  ones  and  this  is  as  it  should 
be.  Constitutions  are  not  intended  to  express  the 
public's  beliefs  and  ideals,  though  the  creeds  of 
commonwealths,  like  the  creeds  of  individuals,  may 
be  guessed  from  their  denials.  Constitutions  are 
the  law  addressed  to  the  people's  representatives, 
the  thou  shalt  nots,  rather  than  the  gospel  of  hopes 
and  desires.  It  is  easier  to  write  ''Congress  shall 
make  no  law  regarding  the  establishment  of  reli- 

5 


College  and  Commonwealth 

gion,"  tlian  it  is  to  prepare  a  program  to  make 
American  boys  and  girls  disciplined,  responsible, 
high-minded,  aspiring  men  and  women.  It  is 
easier  to  write,  **The  state  shall  teach,"  than  to 
say  what  and  how,  when  and  where,  and  whom 
the  state  shall  teach,  and  who  else  shall  teach. 

Beginning  as  we  did  with  a  narrow  view  of  the 
field  of  government,  concerned  for  freedom  from 
interference  with  the  individual,  rather  than  for 
eflSciency  of  achievement,  we  have  been  gradually 
expanding  our  conception  of  the  proper  activities 
of  government,  until  the  old  sense  of  individual 
responsibility,  the  readiness  to  organize  volun- 
tary associations  to  accomplish  any  good  desired 
by  a  considerable  number  and  to  pay  the  bills  of 
such  undertakings  out  of  the  private  purse,  seem 
in  danger  of  being  lost  in  the  emphasis  laid  upon 
governmental  activity  and  in  the  readiness  to  shift 
to  the  shoulder  of  the  taxpayer  the  cost  of  tasks 
which  may  or  may  not  have  his  interest  or  assent. 
On  the  one  hand  we  can  not  view  without  concern 
this  apparent  diminution  of  individual  initiative 
and  of  readiness  to  sacrifice  for  the  public  weal 
on  the  part  of  the  individual,  and,  on  the  other 
hand,  we  must  disapprove  manifestations  of  a 
greedy  bureaucratic  spirit  which  would  limit  serv- 
ice for  the  commonwealth  to  the  activities  of  gov- 
ernment. There  are  abroad  to-day  political  philo- 
sophers, who,  like  the  pantheistic  philosophers  in 
religion,  are  restless  and  bewildered  in  a  multi- 
form world  and  who  would  force  an  arbitrary 
unity.     The  pantheistic  philosopher  avoids  confu- 

6 


College  and  Commonwealth 

sion  by  asserting  all  is  God.  The  bureaucratic 
philosopher  would  organize  all  activities  of  society 
as  activities  of  government,  and  say  it  is  simpler 
and  more  efificient  for  the  state  to  be  the  only  agent 
of  the  popular  will.  As  a  rule  the  sociology  of 
these  philosophers  is  so  narrow  that  they  know 
no  men  in  whom  the  real  reason  for  acts  purport- 
ing to  be  acts  springing  from  a  sense  of  duty  or 
from  natural  benevolence  is  not  either  love  of  gain 
or  love  of  fame  or  love  of  power.  They  mistrust 
without  a  hearing  any  financial  relation  between 
the  state  treasury  and  voluntary  enterprises.  In 
New  York  they  even  questioned  at  the  constitu- 
tional convention  the  exemption  of  voluntary  col- 
leges and  voluntary  churches  from  taxation. 
They  not  only  contend  for  government  ownership 
of  express  companies,  railroads  and  telephones, 
but  regard  the  altruism  of  the  carrier  on  the  rural 
free  delivery  route  as  more  orthodox  than  that  of 
the  circuit  rider  and  confound  the  government  pay 
roll  with  the  angel's  list  of  those  who,  like  Abou, 
love  their  fellow-men.  They  have  replaced  the 
outworn  creed,  ^ '  the  King  can  do  no  wrong, ' '  with 
the  modern  extremely  socialistic  doctrine,  no  one 
can  do  right,  unless  he  be  in  the  pay  and  wear 
the  uniform  of  the  state.  Much,  I  admit,  is  to 
be  said  for  the  Greek  ideal  of  the  commonwealth, 
founded  that  we  may  live  and  continued  that  we 
may  live  well,  a  moral  personality,  undertaking 
whatever  shall  make  its  citizens  better  and  hap- 
pier. It  is  an  ideal,  however,  possible  only  in  a 
far  more  homogeneous  population  than  any  mod- 

7 


College  and  Commonwealth 

ern  republic  lias  yet  possessed.  If  all  had  been 
saints  or  all  sinners  in  New  Elngland  theocracies, 
the  concern  for  the  moral  well  being  of  the  whole 
community  on  the  part  of  the  local  government 
would  have  proven  less  irksome.  President  Low- 
ell, of  Han'ard,  has  pointed  out  clearly  in  his  book 
on  "Public  Opinion  and  Popular  Government" 
that  government  by  public  opinion  can  not  survive 
if  the  opinion  of  the  majority  imposes  government 
in  a  field  in  which  no  true  public  opinion  exists; 
that  is,  in  a  field  where  the  people  as  a  whole  are 
not  united  in  a  conviction  that  it  is  properly  a 
field  of  government.  Various  reasons  may  oper- 
ate to  restrict  the  field  of  government,  in  a  gov- 
ernment whose  functions  are  restricted  to  the 
fields  in  which  a  true  public  opinion  exists.  It 
was  not  the  intention  of  the  American  people,  for 
example,  in  excluding  religion  from  the  field  of 
government,  that  this  should  be  an  irreligious  peo- 
ple. It  was  not  in  the  minds  of  our  constitution 
makers  that  religion  was  socially  unimportant  or 
that  it  was  one  of  those  luxuries  which  the  plain 
man  could  spare.  It  was  not  the  intention  to  di- 
minish activity  in  religion,  but,  rather,  to  furnish 
greater  opportunity  for  its  free  exercise.  It  was 
the  thought  of  our  fathers  that  some  of  the  most 
important  functions  of  society  could  not  be  per- 
formed by  the  state.  The  foreign  visitor,  there- 
fore, who  judges  the  American  people  by  their 
governments,  knows  only  a  part  of  their  life,  and 
the  immigrant  accustomed  to  the  fostering  care 
of  paternalistic  government,  who  thinks  first  of 

8 


College  and  Commonwealth 

government  as  the  supplier  of  his  needs  and 
righter  of  his  wrongs,  has  not  entered  into  full 
consciousness  of  the  freedom  for  individual  initia- 
tive and  for  voluntary  association  with  which  the 
republic  endows  her  children.  The  striking  char- 
acteristic of  the  American  of  to-day  is  the  presence 
in  every  part  of  our  country  of  countless  volun- 
tary organizations  for  every  purpose  under  the 
sun.  This  tendency  has  undoubtedly  been  carried 
to  an  extreme,  but  it  has  made  of  our  nation  a  na- 
tion of  self-reliant  men  willing  to  back  their  words, 
like  the  knights  of  the  days  of  chivalry,  not  with 
the  sw^ord  indeed,  but  with  their  check  books. 
This  spirit  of  voluntaryism  has  given  us  in  the 
field  of  education  not  only  state  schools  and  uni- 
versities, but  voluntary  schools  and  colleges, 
founded  and  maintained  either  by  religious  de- 
nominations as  a  part  of  their  contribution  to  the 
enlightenment  of  men  and  women,  or  by  men  and 
w^omen  of  large  w^ealth,  ready  in  our  democracy, 
no  less  than  the  kings  and  noblemen  of  monarchies, 
to  be  patrons  of  literature  and  science.  And,  as 
w^e  look  out  over  America  to-day  and  view  the  re- 
sults of  this  individualistic  effort  side  by  side  with 
the  efforts  of  organized  government,  the  candid 
observer  must  agree  that  the  result  is  eminently 
good  and  must  hope  that  this,  as  well  as  other  vir- 
tues of  frontiersmen,  will  not  be  lost  in  an  older 
civilization. 

The  college  to  whose  service  you  have  called  me 
to-day  is  the  product  of  such  voluntary  effort. 
The  citizens  of  Easton  who  secured  the  original 

9 


College  and  Commonwealth 

charter  in  1826  hoped  for  the  adoption  of  the  col- 
le^-o  by  tlio  state,  made  provision  in  the  charter  for 
visitation  by  the  governor  (so  that  the  presence 
of  Governor  Brumbaugh  to-day  is  entirely  consti- 
tutional) and  were  even  successful  in  securing  one 
small  appropriation  from  the  state  treasury  in  the 
early  thirties  for  a  school  of  education.  The 
hopes  of  the  founders  were,  however,  not  realized 
and  after  twenty  years  of  struggle  they  turned  to 
the  Presbyterian  Church  as  the  organization  best 
able  to  lend  the  college  additional  patronage  and 
financial  support.  This  arrangement  was  rather 
disappointing  in  its  financial  result,  but  very  bene- 
ficial in  that  it  defined  the  character  of  the  college, 
gave  it  a  star  to  steer  by  and  helped  it  to  grow  to 
manhood  with  fixed  principles  and  ideas.  What  it 
possesses  to-day  has  come  to  it  largely  as  the  re- 
sult of  the  efforts  of  a  few  consecrated  individuals 
and  from  the  gratitude  of  that  splendid  company 
of  sons  which  it  has  itself  raised  up.  It  stands 
to-day  as  a  type  of  the  voluntary  college,  in  official 
and  sympathetic  relation  with  a  great  church,  pre- 
pared to  serve  the  commonwealth.  Are  such  col- 
leges an  asset  of  the  common\vealth  ?  Are  they 
worth  what  they  cost?  Is  there  to  continue  to  be 
a  place  for  them  in  our  American  scheme  of  educa- 
tion! Xot  we  of  Lafayette  alone,  but  all  who  are 
interested  in  voluntary  foundations  in  education 
and  elsewhere,  are  concerned  to  know  whether  the 
American  scheme  of  education  is  to  make  provi- 
sion for  the  continuation  of  such  foundations,  or 
whether,  after  the  analogy  of  so  many  undertak- 

10 


College  and  Commonwealth 

ings  in  our  republic,  the  experiment  having  been 
made  by  voluntary  enterprise,  the  need  demon- 
strated and  successful  methods  proved,  the  burden 
as  it  becomes  a  little  irksome  is  to  be  shifted  on  to 
the  broad  shoulders  of  the  state  or  greedily  ab- 
sorbed by  the  bureaucrats. 

Now  and  then  perhaps  a  college  will  be  estab- 
lished or  maintained  by  some  individual  for  fun, 
as  he  would  maintain  a  private  yacht,  though  why 
any  one  should  do  so  may  be  a  mystery  to  you. 
You  can  not  eat  a  college,  you  can  not  travel  in  it, 
you  can  not  clip  coupons  from  it,  and  no  stock  ex- 
change lists  its  stock ;  yet  an  exceptional  man  here 
and  there  testifies  that  there  is  no  other  hobby  so 
absorbing,  none  so  stimulating,  none  so  likely  to 
remain  exclusive,  the  prerogative  of  kings,  multi- 
millionaires and  democracies,  because  like  other 
exclusive  hobbies  no  one  can  afford  to  ride  them  if 
he  must  ask,  '*how  much,"  before  he  mounts,  or 
keep  an  eye  on  the  taximeter  as  he  rides.  But  for 
the  most  part  our  voluntary  enterprises  in  Amer- 
ica are  founded  and  maintained  not  as  luxuries, 
but  for  an  end  esteemed  worth  while  by  men  accus- 
tomed to  count  the  cost  and  as  an  imperative 
duty  by  those  accustomed  to  hearken  to  the  inward 
voice  of  enlightened  conscience.  It  is  these  men 
who  are  asking  in  all  seriousness  to-day,  ''Do  the 
voluntary  institutions  differ  in  any  way  from  state 
institutions  in  the  contribution  they  make  to 
American  life,  and  would  any  important  element 
be  missing  from  our  commonwealth,  were  all  our 
professors  placed  upon  the  pay  roll  of  the  state?" 

11 


College  and  Commonwealth 

To  this  question  it  is  not  sufficient  to  answer,  what 
lias  boon  will  bo. 

The  American  college  in  the  sense  in  which  we 
use  the  word  is  less  than  a  century  old.  Fifty 
years  ago  the  largest  American  college,  Harvard, 
had  no  more  students  than  Lafayette  has  to-day. 
"Why,  therefore,  when  the  American  college  is  so 
new,  should  we  think  its  history  so  nearly  written? 
Why  should  we  not  anticipate  as  radical  changes, 
as  great  advances,  as  revolutionary  ideas  in  the 
college  of  to-morrow  as  in  the  college  of  yester- 
day? The  answer  to  the  question  is  part  of  the 
larger  question,  ''How  much  voluntaryism  do  we 
want  to  preserve  in  American  life?"  "How  far 
are  we  prepared  to  go,  not  in  socializing  the  state, 
but  in  govemmentalizing  society?" 

I  had  heard  reports  over  in  New  York  that  in 
Pennsylvania  a  charitable  institution  was  defined 
as  one  which  got  all  it  could  from  the  state  treas- 
ury, instead  of  one  which  contributed  all  it  could 
to  the  state,  but  I  was  somewhat  taken  aback  to 
be  informed  this  month,  by  a  representative  of 
a  public  service  corporation,  that  in  Pennsylvania 
a  college  was  not  classed  as  a  charitable  institu- 
tion unless  it  received  money  from  the  state  treas- 
ury. I  am  glad  to  have  learned  on  further  inquiry 
that,  though  this  conception  may  prevail  in  the 
public  mind,  it  has  not  yet  been  written  into  the 
law  of  Pennsylvania,  nor  this  narrow  conception 
of  the  commonwealth  made  an  official  creed.  Per- 
haps the  reason  why  the  voluntary  foundations 
have  hardly  held  their  own  with  tax-supported  in- 

12 


College  and  Commonwealth 

stitutions  in  recent  years  is  that  in  education,  as 
in  religion,  it  is  the  poor  who  hear  gladly  any 
message  of  advance,  of  better  things  within  reach, 
and  the  poor  turn  naturally  in  a  democracy  to 
government,  the  easiest  instrument  through  which 
the  common  man  can  make  his  faith  effective. 
President  King  has  said  of  knowledge,  *' knowl- 
edge has  been  increased  too  fast  in  recent  years  to 
have  undergone  thoroughly  the  process  of  ideal- 
ization." So,  too,  the  wealth  of  modern  society 
has  come  too  fast  for  interest  in  literature  and  sci- 
ence to  keep  pace,  and  the  founding  of  private  for- 
tunes has  outstripped  the  establishment  of  more 
permanent  foundations,  until  for  every  college  or 
university  which  exists  in  the  United  States  to- 
day, numerous  as  they  are,  there  is  an  individual 
counting  only  as  one,  according  to  our  modern  util- 
itarian philosophy,  whose  personal  income  for  a 
single  year,  according  to  the  federal  income  tax  re- 
turn, is  equal  not  to  the  income  of  the  college  or 
university  with  which  he  may  be  paired,  but  to  the 
capital  which  it  has  painfully  gathered  through 
the  generations. 

Conceding  room  for  the  voluntary  college  in 
our  scheme  of  American  education,  therefore,  how 
shall  it  justify  itself,  what  will  be  its  distinctive 
contribution  to  the  commonwealth?  This  is  the 
question  I  ask  myself  in  this  inaugural.  It  is  not 
a  question  to  which  time  will  permit  me  to  find  a 
full  answer.  But  the  books  of  the  voluntary  col- 
leges, financial  and  otherwise,  are  open  to  the 
world,  and  he  who  will  may  read  by  the  light  of 

13 


College  and  Cominonwealth 

history.  One  answer  to  the  question  I  must  give. 
Even  in  this  age  of  ubiquitous  omniscience  I  think 
it  is  well  to  maintain  a  distinction  between  school 
and  armory,  between  school  and  state  house,  be- 
tween school  and  country  club,  between  school  and 
counting  house,  between  school  and  church,  be- 
tween school  and  hospital.  The  college  will  not 
do  everything  that  has  to  be  done  in  the  world. 
Nor  will  all  the  colleges  have  to  do  be  done  by  any 
one  college.  There  have  been  college  presidents 
that  have  been  great  schoolmasters.  If  the  col- 
lege president  of  to-day  is  held  down  by  worldly 
cares  from  aspiring  so  high,  he  may  at  least  count 
himself  fortunate  if  he  shares  the  fellowship  of 
great  schoolmasters  in  his  faculty.  My  first  an- 
swer, therefore,  to  the  question,  "What  will  the 
college  contribute  to  the  state?"  is,  "The  college 
wall  teach." 

While  my  inauguration  has  been  postponed  to 
this  hour,  I  should  have  felt  that  I  had  come  to 
Lafayette  too  late,  had  I  not  come  in  time  to  know 
one  whom  we  miss  at  these  exercises,  that  great 
schoolmaster,  Joseph  Hardy,  in  whose  classroom 
lingered  an  atmosphere  of  an  older  day,  when  a 
college  w^as  a  school,  w^here  the  professor  had 
something  important  to  teach  and  the  scholar  had 
something  important  to  learn,  and  where  there 
was  no  confusion  as  to  which  was  teacher  and 
Avhich  pupil. 

Lafayette  has  been  singularly  blessed  in  great 
teachers,  including  its  greatest  teacher,  the  scholar 
of  international  fame,  who  fifty  years  ago  at  Am- 


College  and  Commonwealth 

herst  defined  the  true  scholar  as  one  "who  will 
not  spend  his  life  in  general  devotion  to  tinth 
without  cultivating  any  one  truth,  celebrating  and 
worshiping  truth  as  a  goddess,  wooing  and  win- 
ning none  of  her  daughters, ' '  and  who  exemplified 
his  own  definition  by  rising  to  a  foremost  place  in 
his  own  specialty.  Lafayette,  indeed,  has  been 
out  of  fashion  so  long  in  sticking  to  the  school- 
master idea  that  she  needs  but  cling  to  it  a  little 
longer  to  find  herself  leading  in  the  newest  move- 
ment in  education. 

I  think  it  worth  while  to  repeat  the  thesis.  The 
first  service  of  the  college  is  to  teach ;  to  teach,  in 
the  first  place,  a  handful  of  young  men.  That,  you 
think,  goes  without  saying,  but  does  it?  By  teach- 
ing I  do  not  mean  training,  dramng  forth  the  in- 
nate power,  the  development  of  character,  the 
stimulation  of  ambition,  but  by  teaching  I  mean 
just  what  it  means  in  the  primary  school,  impart- 
ing to  the  student,  in  such  a  way  that  it  becomes 
a  permanent  possession,  a  knowledge  of  truth  and 
things,  a  knowledge  also  of  causes  and  of  values. 
I  find  a  good  deal  of  skepticism  as  to  the  value 
of  this  part  of  the  colleges'  work.  Do  we  Amer- 
icans generally  prize  very  highly  the  knowledge 
which  the  college  curriculum  purports  to  impart? 
Do  we  not  rather  all  agree  that  the  majority  of 
college  students  do  not  know  five  years  after 
graduation  what  they  gave  sufficient  evidence  of 
knowing  to  pass  the  college  examinations?  Is 
there  any  society  or  set  or  group  to  whom  pre- 
eminence is  generally  accorded,  in  which  betrayal 

15 


College  and  Commonwealth 

of  ignorance  in  any  sphere  causes  loss  of  caste  as 
a  breach  of  etiquette  does  in  a  social  ckib?  On 
the  contrary,  is  it  not  the  mark  of  membership  in 
the  most  exclusive  scientific  circles  to  disclaim  the 
possession  of  knowledge,  or  even  of  a  natural  curi- 
osity in  any,  except  a  limited  field?  Is  it  not  the 
fashion  to  say,  "I  remember  nothing  of  what  I 
learned  at  college,  but  the  impress  of  this  or  that 
man  will  never  leave  me?"  But  why  buy  com- 
radeship at  so  high  a  price  as  that  paid  in  the 
arduous  path  of  learning?  Why  not  the  country 
club,  with  good  fellowship  in  hotly  contested 
sports  and  more  leisurely  golf  contests? 

"Was  Tholuck  right  when  he  said,  "My  most  im- 
portant work  is  my  walks  with  individual  boys, 
not  my  lectures  in  the  classroom? ' '  Why  not  then 
dissolve  the  university  again  into  peripatetic  so- 
phists? What  were  the  schools  that  made  Alcuin 
the  great  schoolmaster  of  his  day  and  gave  his 
great  patron,  Charles  the  Great,  immortal  fame 
as  celebrated  in  the  window  here  behind  me? 
They  were  for  the  most  part  companies  of  monks 
set  to  copy  manuscripts  and  so  preserve  from  ex- 
tinction the  world's  knowledge.  Thus  Alcuin  ex- 
horts his  pupils  to  "beware  of  introducing  their 
own  frivolities  in  the  words  they  copy,  nor  to  let  a 
trifler's  hand  make  mistakes  through  haste." 
Writing  books  (and  he  means  by  that  merely  copy- 
ing books)  is  better,  he  exhorted,  than  planting 
vines,  "for  he  who  plants  a  vine  serves  his  belly, 
but  he  who  writes  a  book  serves  his  soul."  The 
mere  transmission  of  the  world  ^a  lojowledge  is  of 

J6 


College  and  Commonwealth 

more  significance  than  we  realize  in  this  day  of 
the  printing  press.  So  strongly  do  I  believe  that 
it  is  the  function  of  the  college  to  teach  that,  if 
the  knowledge  imparted  is  not  worth  remember- 
ing, I  would  replace  it  in  the  curriculum  with  some- 
thing that  is  so  worth  while.  If  the  method  of 
teaching  gives  us  a  student  who  does  not  know  as 
a  senior  what  he  knew  as  a  freshman,  nor  as  alum- 
nus what  he  knew  at  commencement,  I  would 
change  the  method  of  teaching.  If  our  method  of 
teaching  language  does  not  give  the  student  facil- 
ity in  either  reading  or  speaking  a  language,  we 
must  improve  the  method.  If  the  knowledge  im- 
parted is  so  strongly  tinged  with  the  personality 
of  the  teacher  and  so  little  a  part  of  what  should 
be  expected  of  the  educated  citizen  of  the  world 
that  it  can  not  be  tested  in  a  comprehensive  exam- 
ination by  some  one  other  than  the  instructor,  then 
is  the  knowledge,  indeed,  of  little  worth. 

There  is  no  commonw^ealth  in  America  to-day 
which  does  not  need  exact  knowledge,  and  this  is 
true  of  all  ranks  of  society.  It  is  true  of  the 
mechanic  no  less  than  of  the  man  who  makes  our 
laws  in  the  legislature.  It  is  above  all  true  of  the 
leaders  of  public  thought  and  opinion,  whether  we 
want  to  make  a  new  tariff  or  devise  a  new  currency 
law.  With  the  increasing  complexity  of  our  civili- 
zation it  is  almost  impossible  for  the  common- 
wealth to  find  men  who  can  really  see  the  common- 
wealth as  a  whole  or  whose  minds  are  sufiiciently 
disciplined  not  to  have  their  vision  distorted  by 
personal  preference  or  passion, 

17 


College  and  Commonwealth 

The  first  duty  of  the  college  is  to  teach,  because 
that  is  its  peculiar  duty,  because  it  is  a  school  and 
systematic  teaching  its  chief  object.  It  need  not, 
however,  teach  everything]:  to  equal  extent.  We 
need  more  specialization  in  our  teaching.  The 
state  has  felt  that  it  could  sjiecialize  in  agriculture 
just  as  it  has  felt  it  could  give  away  free  seeds, 
because  agriculture  has  been  considered  the  basic 
life  of  the  state,  but  when  it  comes  to  further 
specialization  the  state  is  embarrassed.  Equality 
of  treatment  is  the  national  watchword.  If  we 
teach  German  in  our  schools  we  must  teach  Italian, 
the  politician  discovers;  if  Italian,  Spanish.  If 
the  arts  course  is  free,  the  engineering  course 
must  be  free ;  if  engineering  is  free,  then  too, 
law  and  medicine.  In  at  least  one  western  state 
university  it  has  been  found  necessary  for  political 
reasons  to  avoid  in\'idious  distinctions,  in  assign- 
ing credits  for  entrance  subjects,  so  that  every- 
thing, w^hether  it  be  Greek  or  blacksmithing,  must 
be  assigned  academic  values  on  the  basis  of  time 
alone.  The  state  must  have  a  university  where, 
as  Ezra  Cornell  wished,  any  one  may  find  instruc- 
tion in  anything.  Slow,  gradual  raising  of  the 
average  must  be  the  task  of  the  state. 

The  voluntary  college  may  make  a  different  con- 
tribution. She  may,  if  she  will,  be  one-sided. 
She  may,  if  she  ^vill,  ignore  whole  fields  of  know^l- 
edge.  She  may,  if  she  will,  pick  and  choose  her 
students.  She  may,  if  she  will,  even  pick  and 
choose  her  teachers.  She  may  have  what  we  call 
character,  personality,  a  decided  set  in  one  direc- 

18 


College  and  Commonwealth 

tion.  She  may,  if  she  will,  be  little,  not  big,  and 
it  is  true,  as  Van  Dyke  says,  "We  admire  the 
ocean,  we  love  the  little  rivers."  She  may  seek 
to  train  leaders,  prophets,  seers.  She  may  even 
be  religious,  Presbyterian  if  you  please,  and  make 
religious  exercises  a  part  of  her  compulsory  cur- 
riculum. Calvinistic  though  we  Presbyterians  be, 
no  race  has  perhaps  set  greater  store  by  its  free- 
dom of  choice,  and  its  theology  has  been  careful  to 
safeguard  "the  liberty  of  the  creature."  All  that 
our  fathers  dreamed  of  the  fruits  of  freedom  for 
the  creature,  we  may  dream  as  the  fruits  of  free- 
dom in  educational  enterprise.  All  that  the  state 
has  gained  from  according  freedom  to  its  indi- 
vidual citizens  it  will  gain  by  according  freedom 
to  its  voluntary  institutions. 

I  accept,  therefore,  Mr.  President,  the  high  of- 
fice to  which  you  have  called  me,  not  regretful  that 
this  college  is  a  voluntary  one ;  that  it  must  beg  the 
bread  it  eats  and  cannot  dip  mth  others  in  the 
cbmmon  bowl,  hard  as  such  a  condition  is  for  its 
executive,  because  we  believe  that  thereby  we 
shall  win  to  a  larger  freedom  both  for  ourselves, 
for  our  commonwealth  and  for  truth,  stern  master 
of  us  all.  The  mission  of  the  independent  college 
is  not  yet  done  in  this  commonwealth  of  ours. 
Large  tasks  await  the  college,  still  discernible  in 
spite  of  the  shadows  cast  by  war  upon  our  aca- 
demic groves,  and  for  these  we  gird  ourselves, 
feign  to  make  that  splendid  inaugural  address  of 
Akbar  our  own : — 


19 


College  and  Commonwealth 

' '  I  have  set  my  heart 
On  making:  bcanty,  truth  and  justice  shine 
As  the  ordered  stars  above  the  darkened  earth. 
Are  not  these  also  thing:s  to  be  desired, 
And  striven  for  with  no  uncertain  toil? 
And  save  throufrh  thorn,  whence  comes  the  gift  of  peace? 

' '  Here  will  I  build  my  capital,  and  here 
The  world  shall  come  unto  a  council  hall. 
And  in  a  place  of  peace  pursue  the  quest 
Of  wisdom  and  the  finding"  out  of  truth. 

"That  there  be  no  more  discord  upon  earth. 
But  only  knowledge,  beauty,  and  good  will." 

(Bliss  Carman,  "The  Gate  of  Peace") 


20 


THE  COLLEGE  AND  THE  INDIVIDUAL 

THE  concern  of  the  college  is  the  individual. 
In  our  various  laboratories  we  count  by  dif- 
ferent units,  ^ons  in  geology,  footpounds  in 
physics,  electrons  in  chemistry,  cells  in  biology. 
The  unit  of  college  computation  is  the  man. 
When  we  forget  this,  we  lose  our  way  in  the  edu- 
cational world. 

This  does  not  mean,  however,  that  the  college 
which  can  count  the  most  graduates  is  the  greatest 
college.  Because  to-day  for  $1.25  you  can  buy 
downtown  a  basket  of  potatoes  the  size  of  marbles 
— the  kind  that  in  ordinary  years  would  be  left 
to  rot  in  the  field — and  so  get  200  or  300  potatoes 
in  the  same  measure  which  once  held  fifty,  it  does 
not  follow  that  it  is  a  great  potato  year. 

Neither  does  it  follow  that  the  greatness  or 
smallness,  the  satisfaction  or  dissatisfaction  of 
any  particular  member  of  the  graduating  class 
measures  the  institution.  Tell  a  man  that  he  is 
the  unit  by  which  you  measure,  and  he  is  very 
likely  to  imagine  himself  the  size  of  the  thing  to  be 
measured.  He  is  not  content,  like  a  f  ootrule  used 
to  measure  Pardee  Hall,  to  remain  a  f  ootrule.  He 
is  more  likeh^  to  act  the  part  of  the  dressmaker's 
collapsible  form  and  try  to  swell  to  the  size  of  the 
thing  measured. 


Address  at  the  Eighty-fifth   Commencement  of  Lafayette  Col- 
lege, June  7,  1920. 

21 


The  College  and  the  Individual 

There  is  good  ground,  theological  and  philo- 
sophical, for  the  old  slogan  "Man  the  measure  of 
all  things,"  but  popularly  interpreted,  we  find  it 
gives  us  some  romantic  egoist  such  as  Mr.  Fitz- 
gerald has  pictured  in  his  recent  novel,  who  after 
some  years  of  prep  school  and  graduation  from 
Princeton,  and  a  wide  social  experience,  feels  that 
he  has  achieved  the  summit  of  \^isdom  when  he 
can  say,  **I  know  myself  but  that  is  all."  Thus 
Amory  Blaine  agrees  with  Alexander  Pope  in  his 
final  conclusion  of  the  whole  matter,  ''All  our 
knowledge  is  ourselves  to  know,"  if  not  with 
Pope 's  twin  axiom  ' '  That,  virtue  only,  makes  our 
bliss  below."  It  is  a  form  of  wisdom  ascribed  in 
''Pilgrim's  Progress"  to  the  young  man  Igno- 
rance, who  enters  on  the  way  by  "the  little 
crooked  lane"  from  the  "country  of  Conceit." 

His  final  argument  was,  you  will  recall,  in  each 
case  "My  heart  tells  me  so."  To  which  Christian 
rather  brutally  rejoined,  "The  wise  man  says  'He 
that  trusteth  in  his  own  heart  is  a  fool.'  "  Never- 
theless you  will  recall  that  Ignorance,  trusting  in 
his  heart,  attained  the  very  gate  of  the  Celestial 
City,  and  that  with  somewhat  less  trouble  than 
Christian,  but  his  ultimate  destination  caused 
Christian  to  observe,  "Then  I  saw  that  there  was 
a  way  to  hell,  even  from  the  gates  of  heaven,  as 
well  as  from  the  city  of  Destruction."  An  obser- 
vation which  he  has  doubtless  had  occasion  to  con- 
firm by  recent  events  in  American  politics. 

Man  is  the  measure  of  the  college.  At  once  in 
a  democracy  there  is  a  cry,  then  let  us  test  the 

22 


The  College  and  the  Individual 

college  by  a  vote.  All  who  think  it  a  good  college 
say  Aye,  opposed  No.  The  ayes  have  it,  and  the 
truth  is  discovered. 

But  my  fundamental  theorem  does  not  mean  this 
either.  The  majority  do  not  rule  in  the  halls  of 
truth.  One  may  vote  with  Galileo  and  ninety-nine 
against  him,  but  the  earth  moves  just  the  same. 
Indeed  one  of  the  chief  objects  of  the  college  is 
to  create  a  man  with  sufficient  knowledge  and  in- 
sight to  be  content  to  stand  for  the  most  part  with 
minorities  against  popular  errors  and  supersti- 
tions. Neither  does  my  thesis  mean  that  a  satis- 
fied customer  is  the  best  recommendation  of  the 
institution's  worth.  Colleges  are  not  here  to  cre- 
ate satisfaction,  but  hunger  and  thirst  after 
knowledge,  and  if  their  customers  are  satisfied, 
are  filled  and  not  hungry,  you  may  be  sure  that  the 
college  has  failed  to  achieve  its  mission. 

What  then  do  we  mean  by  saying  that  Man  is 
the  unit  by  which  we  count  the  achievements  of  a 
college  ?     It  is  a  declaration  of  faith : 

First — That  colleges  are  made  for  man,  not  man 
for  the  colleges. 

Second — That  so  far  as  the  vision  of  the  college 
can  see,  there  is  no  end  of  greater  value,  or  better 
worth  seeking,  than  the  perfect  man. 

Third — That  the  particularistic  philosophy  of 
life  is  better  than  the  communistic,  for  the  reason 
that  abstract  ideals  have  ultimate  value  only  as  we 
can  look  for  their  incarnation  in  some  particular 
individual,  or  individuals ;  and 

Fourth — As  William  James  would  put  it,  that 

23 


The  College  and  the  Individual 

God  tliiiiks  concreto  particulars,  rather  than  ab- 
stract ij:oiioralitios,  and  that  if  our  thinking  powers 
were  as  great  as  His,  we  could  discard  abstract 
ideas,  and  individuals  and  concrete  occasions 
would  alone  remain  real. 

I  venture  to  go  back  to  these  fundamental  truths 
of  our  college  thinking  this  morning,  because  I 
want  to  build  upon  them  some  observations  which 
you  will  all  recognize  as  contrary  to  the  prevailing 
trend  of  thought,  but  which  are,  I  believe,  never- 
theless sound  from  our  college  point  of  view. 

War  placed  a  great  premium  upon  mass.  True 
this  last  war  gave  more  attention  to  the  individual 
than  any  war  has  ever  done  before.  It  went  to 
infinite  pains  to  identify  the  individual  soldier, 
dead  or  alive,  to  shield  him  from  contagion,  to 
cheer  him  with  amusement,  to  nurse  him  when  ill, 
to  restore  him  to  useful  occupation  when  maimed 
— and  nevertheless  the  thought  of  the  war  was  in 
terms  of  divisions,  of  hundreds  of  thousands  and 
millions,  rather  than  in  terms  of  individuals. 
Machine  guns,  such  as  the  one  Mr.  McCabe  there 
operated,  which  can  fire  six  shells  a  minute,  make 
short  work  of  the  hundreds  and  the  thousands. 
Shells  or  soldiers,  it  was  a  war  not  of  thousands 
but  of  tens  of  thousands  and  millions.  We  heard 
on  every  side  talk  of  mobilizing  not  an  army  but 
the  nation.  What  any  one  did,  every  one  must  do. 
The  draft  must  cover  all  men  of  serviceable  age. 
Every  one  must  buy  a  liberty  bond.  The  nation 
must  stand  and  move  as  one  man.  The  result  w^as 
mass  thinking.     The  individual  was  discarded  as 

24 


The  College  and  the  Individual 

a  unit  of  reckoning.  Democracy,  freedom,  patri- 
otism, great  abstract  ideals,  were  enthusiastically 
toasted  with  as  little  thought  given  to  interpreta- 
tion in  terms  of  the  individual,  as  Mr.  Midshipman 
Easy  had  given,  according  to  Marryat,  to  the  ap- 
plication of  the  splendid  ideal  of  equality,  before 
his  arrival  on  shipboard. 

Abstract  ideals,  like  lightning,  are  wonderful 
things  to  attract  the  attention  and  stir  the  pulse, 
they  are  real  as  lightning  is  real,  and  in  the  hands 
of  a  Benjamin  Franklin,  may  be  turned  to  useful 
purpose,  but  in  the  hands  of  the  inexperienced  are 
as  dangerous  as  Jove's  thunderbolts. 

And  now  that  the  crisis  is  past,  these  splendid 
ideals  have  become  the  playthings  of  the  ignorant, 
and  like  unexploded  shells  on  a  battlefield  after  the 
war  is  over,  may  injure  the  very  men  they  were 
created  to  help. 

Men  are  arguing,  the  war  was  fought  that  all 
men  should  be  free.  That  means  that  I  must  be 
free  of  all  restraint,  and  need  recognize  only  such 
obligations  as  I  choose.  The  war  was  fought  that 
smaller  groups  might  choose  their  own  rulers. 
That  means  that  if  we  socialists,  or  we  trade 
unionists,  or  we  college  men,  or  we  capitalists, 
don't  like  the  government,  we  are  free  to  discard 
it  for  one  of  our  own.  Once  break  up  the  status 
quo,  once  admit  that  nations  can  be  carved  as 
chickens,  irrespective  of  the  organic  unity  that 
held  them  together  while  the  old  regime  breathed, 
and  it  is  difficult  to  set  any  theoretic  bounds  to 
your  subdivisions,  short  of  the  individual. 

25 


The  College  and  the  Individual 

''Shall  the  individual  not  be  free  to  strike,  if 
ho  will?"  cries  Mr.  Gompers.  ''Shall  the  indi- 
vidual not  be  free  not  to  strike  in  spite  of  Mr. 
Gompers'  orders?"  asks  Governor  Allen.  Duty 
is  not  collective ;  it  is  personal,  declares  Governor 
Coolidge,  but  at  the  same  time  he  declares  the 
safety  of  society  the  supreme  law.  Freedom  and 
responsibility,  instead  of  being  correlative  as  we 
have  been  taught  to  expect  appear  divergent. 
Philip  Gibbs  in  a  recent  article  writes,  ' '  The  chief 
charge  leveled  against  the  intellectual  tendency 
of  the  United  States  may  be  summed  up  in  one 
word — Intolerance.  Foreign  students  do  not  find 
in  their  study  of  the  American  temperament  or  in 
the  American  form  of  government,  the  sense  of  lib- 
erty with  which  the  people  of  the  United  States 
credit  themselves. ' ' 

It  was  in  another  time  of  war  that  Lincoln  said : 
"The  world  has  never  had  a  good  definition  of 
the  word  liberty,  and  the  American  people,  just 
now,  are  much  in  want  of  one.  We  all  declare  for 
liberty,  but  in  using  the  same  word,  we  do  not 
mean  the  same  thing.  We  assume  the  word 
liberty  may  mean  for  each  man  to  do  as  he  pleases 
with  himself  and  the  product  of  his  labor,  while 
with  others  the  same  word  may  mean  for  some  men 
to  do  as  they  please  with  other  men,  and  the  pro- 
duct of  other  men's  labors." 

Where  the  rights  of  the  individual  leave  off  and 
the  rights  of  society  begin,  is  the  burning  question 
of  the  hour  in  church  and  state,  the  world  around. 
I  think  it  worth  while,  therefore,  to  go  back  to 

26 


The  College  and  the  Individual 

fundamentals,  and  as  college  men  at  least  to  start 
our  argument  afresh.  It  is  quite  possible  that  we 
shall  find  that  if  the  college  exists  for  man,  and 
not  man  for  the  college,  the  same  may  be  true  in 
the  larger  world  outside,  for  as  Aristotle  observed 
long  since,  ''He  who  would  duly  enquire  about  the 
best  form  of  a  state  ouglit  first  to  determine  which 
is  the  most  eligible  life;  for  while  this  remains 
uncertain,  the  best  form  of  the  state  must  also  be 
uncertain.  Then  we  ought  to  ascertain  whether 
the  same  life  is  or  is  not  best  for  the  state  and  for 
individuals. ' ' 

The  eligible  life,  what  is  our  dream  or  vision 
of  it  to-day?  We  exalt  a  brotherhood  of  scholars 
like  this  as  a  form  of  the  eligible  life.  We  believe 
in  the  college  as  an  organism  with  a  corporate 
consciousness.  A  college  professor,  writing  in 
the  June  "Harper's,"  says,  "Life  in  a  college  is 
halfway  between  earth  and  Heaven,"  but  would 
we  exclaim  with  Emerson,  "Oh!  what  is  Heaven, 
but  the  fellowship  of  minds,  that  each  can  stand 
against  the  world  by  its  own  meek  and  incorrupt- 
ible will." 

Do  we  cry  with  Patrick  Henry,  "As  for  me, 
give  me  liberty  or  give  me  death !" — or  do  we  say, 
"Everybody's  doing  it,  so  also  must  I!"  Is  it 
our  great  ambition  "to  belong"  or  to  be  free? 
To  belong  to  a  club,  to  a  tradesunion,  to  a  political 
party  to  a  fraternal  organization?  Are  we  so  so- 
cially minded  that  we  are  prepared  to  say  with 
Cluton  Brock,  "Unless  all  can  be  saved,  none  can 
be  saved"?     Or  is  our  manner  of  thought  more 

27 


The  CoUciic  and  the  liid'ividaal 


-t) 


iiulividualistic,  iiiorc  like  that  of  (*lirist,  who,  when 
askod.  Lord,  are  there  few  that  be  saved  I  an- 
swered, Think  not  in  terms  of  the  group,  strive 
yourself  to  enter  in  at  the  narrow  gate. 

What  is  our  conception  of  the  rehition  of  prop- 
erty to  the  eligible  life?  Have  we  imbibed  the 
free  and  easy  connnunistic  spirit  of  college  halls, 
which  holds  all  things  common  and  is  always  will- 
ing tliat  the  last  man  out  shall  settle  the  check,  or 
shoulder  the  deficit?  Or  have  we  learned  in  a 
more  bitter  school  of  experience  that  everything 
worthwhile  costs  somebody  sweat  and  blood,  so 
that  we  measure  property  by  the  effort  and  fatigue 
it  cost,  and  feel  that  property  should  be  as  per- 
sonal and  individual  a  thing  as  fatigue  is"?  That 
it  makes  quite  a  difference  whether  the  back-ache 
is  in  m}"  back  or  in  yours. 

The  trend  in  college  circles  the  last  fifty  years 
has  all  been  toward  an  emphasis  on  social  relation- 
ships. We  have  emphasized  the  social  sciences. 
We  have  taught  our  men  to  think  of  their  duty  to 
their  neighbor,  to  think  of  themselves  as  members 
of  a  complicated  social  structure.  We  have  in- 
vented a  science  of  sociology.  We  have  stressed 
government  and  laws  of  trade  and  of  intercourse. 
We  have  talked  a  great  deal  about  team  work,  and 
have  magnified  democracy — government  of  the 
people,  by  the  people — until  we  do  not  believe  one 
man  can  even  draw  up  a  resolution  of  condolence, 
but  must  commit  it  to  a  committee  of  at  least  three. 
We  live  in  a  world  of  machinery.  No  piece  of 
machinen^  lives  to  itself.     It  is  connected  by  belts 

28 


The  College  and  the  Individual 

and  shafts,  by  wires  and  bolts  to  a  system.  The 
old-fashioned  stove  in  the  class  room  has  given 
place  to  a  central  heating  plant,  and  the  open  fire- 
place in  the  house,  where  we  could  accurately 
measure  the  ratio  between  personal  effort  and 
heat,  has  given  place  to  an  unseen  furnace,  with  a 
complicated  system  of  pipes,  which  can  only  burn 
one  kind  of  fuel,  which  is  mined  by  men  we  never 
see  and  must  be  bought  from  a  monopoly  at  a  price 
to  be  fixed  after  purchase  at  the  pleasure  of  the 
mine  owner,  mine  w^orker  and  the  government. 

It  is  not  strange  that  we  lose  the  notion  of  our- 
selves as  free  and  independent  individuals,  and 
begin  to  think  of  ourselves  as  cogs  in  a  machine. 
Beginning  as  a  nation  that  believed  that  a  man 
had  certain  inalienable  rights,  our  Anglo-Saxon- 
ism  has  been  so  diluted  with  Semitic,  and  Slavic, 
Teutonic  and  Celtic  strains,  that  we^are  not  sure 
now,  that  man  has  any  inalienable  right  of  any 
kind  which  an  authority-drunken  majority  is 
morally  bound  to  respect.  Even  in  our  own  Pres- 
byterian General  Assembly,  the  majority  may  pass 
a  resolution  about  anything  under  the  sun,  and  it 
strikes  few  as  incongruous.  What  the  majority 
want  is  right — what  the  majority  vote  is  the  truth. 
America,  once  the  home  of  constitutional  liberty, 
is  to-day  more  intolerant  than  England  or  Canada, 
and  views  with  suspicion  any  man  who  does  not 
run  with  the  pack,  or  make  his  demands  with  a 
mob  at  his  back. 

I  want  to-day  to  make  a  plea  for  a  place  for 
individualism  in  America.     We  freely  acknowl- 

29 


The  Collciic  and  the  Individual 

0(li!:e  \v«.'  are  not  produciiit::  our  share  of  the 
world's  iiu)st  constructive  leaders.  Not  alone  in 
poetry  and  art,  but  even  in  foreign  trade  we  lack 
courage  and  invention.  The  fate  of  the  Cuban 
sugar  crop  is  witness  to  that.  Our  boasted  inven- 
tiveness in  mechanics  made  a  sorry  showing  in 
the  business  of  aeroplanes  in  the  war.  Our  fore- 
most naval  officer  was  Canadian  born.  Our  most 
successful  war  administrator  acquired  his  philoso- 
phy of  life  in  London  and  Australia.  The  most 
constructive  critic  of  our  government  machinery, 
a  cabinet  member  in  the  present  administration — 
was  a  Canadian  by  birth.  The  chief  Presbyterian 
pulpits  of  New  York  and  Philadelphia  are  occu- 
pied by  native  Scotchmen.  Our  greatest  techno- 
logical school  was  administered  until  recently  by 
a  man  whose  ideals  were  formed  in  New  Zealand, 
and  we  have  committed  the  leadership  of  more 
than  one  of  our  greatest  state  universities  to  the 
hands  of  men  not  American  bom. 

It  is  high  time  that  we  stop  and  ask  ourselves, 
Where  is  the  weak  spot  in  our  national  philosophy 
of  life?  It  is  not  too  much  religion,  because  the 
Scot  has  that  as  well  as  we.  It  is  not  too  much 
of  life  family  style,  because  French  and  Italians 
and  Germans  carry  that  to  greater  extremes  than 
do  we.  It  may  be  enervating  luxury,  because  we 
are  the  nation  of  most  widely  disseminated  wealth, 
though  not  of  greatest  contrasts  of  life,  known  to 
history.  It  may  be  our  national  idea  of  sport, 
which  is  to  sit  cheering  in  the  bleachers  while 
some  one  else  works.     It  may  be  the  deadening  in- 

30 


The  College  and  the  Individual 

fluence  of  an  outgrown  school  system,  adapted  to 
the  needs  of  the  dull  pupil.  It  may  be  a  certain 
feminism,  due  to  the  exalted  position  accorded 
women,  the  highest  known  to  civilization.  It  may 
be  the  inevitable  leveling  process  of  pure  democ- 
racy and  the  increasing  disposition  to  count,  not 
weigh,  opinions,  so  that  even  as  intelligent  a  man 
as  Vice  President  Marshall  joins  in  the  popular 
cry  of  'the  futility  of  representative  government, 
saying  as  he  did  at  the  recent  Assembly,  ''Con- 
gress, Congress  could  not  settle  a  cup  of  coffee" — 
you,  the  people,  knowing  the  real  truth  of  things 
and  the  way  out  so  much  better  than  your  picked 
representatives  in  House  or  Senate  or  Executive 
Mansion,  you  must  settle  these  momentous  issues 
for  the  nation. 

While  Democracy  tends  to  destroy  individuals. 
Democracy  on  the  other  hand,  if  it  thinks  at  all, 
if  it  expresses  itself  at  all,  must  do  so  through 
individuals.  It  thinks  not  in  abstract  principles, 
it  thinks  in  terms  of  individuals.  The  LeagTie  of 
Nations  is  Wilson,  and  Wilson  is  the  League  of 
Nations,  Reservations  are  Lodge  and  Lodge  is 
reservations.  America  isolate  is  Hiram  Johnson. 
Trade  Unionism  is  Gompers,  and  so  it  goes.  Dem- 
ocracy will  prevent  your  being  an  individual  if  it 
can,  but  if  you  become  one  in  spite  of  it,  it  will 
make  you  a  demigod.  In  an  inarticulate  w^ay,  the 
country  knows  to-day  the  kind  of  man  it  wants  for 
President.  If  it  could  once  see  him,  it  would  know 
him.  It  could  draw  the  specifications — a  man 
who  believes  in  a  league  of  nations,  which  will  be 

31 


The  College  and  the  Individual 

a  real  Icaiiue  aiul  not  a  "big  I'our"  affair  or  glori- 
fied oxpaiiyioii  of  the  British  Empire — and  which 
gives  reasonable  promise  of  promoting  the  peace 
of  the  world.  A  man  who  is  not  unsympathetic 
with  the  rights  and  aspirations  of  labor,  but  who 
is  not  afraid  of  the  trade-unions,  who  will  point 
out  the  falseness  of  many  trade-union  ideals,  the 
damage  they  have  done  to  American  standards  of 
honest  craftsmanship.  A  man  who  as  an  em- 
])loyer  of  labor  has  made  some  substantial  contri- 
bution toward  a  better  working  basis  for  capital 
and  labor.  A  man  who  has  been  trained  in  the 
ten  commandments  and  has  so  disciplined  himself 
that  he  is  immune  from  the  temptation  of  coveting 
the  possessions  of  his  more  prosperous  neighbor, 
and  who  is  not,  therefore,  sympathetic  to  schemes 
of  taxation  which  have  their  root  in  the  passion 
of  covetousness,  and  are  but  thinly-veiled  forms  of 
brigandage.  A  man  who  knows  by  his  own  ex- 
perience that  the  life  of  man  is  a  life  of  toil  by 
the  very  rules  of  the  game,  who  knows  that  w^age- 
fixing  will  not  release  men  from  toil  in  the  long 
run,  no  matter  how  skillfully  juggled,  and  that  the 
only  thing  that  will  permanently  release  man  from 
toil  is  science  and  scientific  invention  and  morality 
of  life.  A  man  whose  back  is  bent  as  was  Lin- 
coln's by  sjTnpathy  with  the  toil  and  strain  and 
suffering  of  all  classes  of  men  and  women,  and  who 
will  not  willingly  add  a  jot  to  the  burden,  nor  add 
himself  to  the  lawyers  and  red-tapists  and  men  of 
brains    but    no    conscience,    who    bind    burdens 

32 


The  College  and  the  Individual 

grievous  to  be  borne  while  they  themselves  touch 
not  one  with  their  little  finger. 

A  man,  therefore,  who  will  go  the  most  direct 
road,  live  the  simplest  life,  content  himself  with  a 
plain  yea  and  nay,  doing  the  right  as  God  gives 
him  to  see  the  right,  rather  than  seeking  to  give 
the  public  what  it  wants  for  the  sake  of  personal 
popularity  or  advantage.  A  man  with  a  passion 
for  justice — and  a  man  who  knows  that  the  usual 
fate  awaiting  ''Faithful"  is  torture  and  death  in 
"Vanity  Fair."  It  is  because  America  has  not 
been  able,  in  this  critical  juncture,  to  discern  these 
qualities  combined  in  any  one  man  that  the  nomi- 
nation. Republican  or  Democratic,  is  still  said  to 
be  any  one's  fight. 

The  public  to-day  is  more  nearly  unanimous  in 
what  it  wants  done  than  the  politicians  think.  On 
the  other  hand,  public  loaders  competent  to  in- 
terpret these  desires  and  to  achieve  these  ends, 
were  never  more  scarce  than  they  are  to-day. 

A  great  deal  of  the  blame  for  this  shortage  of 
the  right  kind  of  leaders  lies,  in  my  opinion,  at 
the  door  of  the  American  college.  Every  college 
is  to-day,  of  course,  to  a  greater  degree  than  ever 
in  the  history  of  the  world,  the  child  of  its  time. 
There  are  no  cloisters.  The  news  of  the  metropo- 
lis reaches  the  campus  even  before  the  metropoli- 
tan reader  is  awake.  The  books,  the  plays,  the 
periodicals,  are  the  same  for  student  and  for  tired 
business  man.  Student  activities,  college  customs, 
take  so  much  time — there  is  so  much  conformity 

33 


The  College  and  thr  Individual 

to  he  observed  lliat  oriuinal  thought  is  crowded 
out  and  discouraged. 

If  a  mail  lias  sigiis  of  genius  or  distinguishing 
markings,  if  he  is  a  variant  of  nature  from  the 
accepted  type,  that  may  be  the  beginning  of  a  new 
era  or  a  new  species,  then  every  effort  is  made  to 
tame  him,  and  dress  him  do-svn  to  the  regulation 
pattern,  to  make  of  him  what  Fitzgerald  would 
call  a  "slicker." 

Side  by  side  with  this  leveling  instinct  of 
democracy  goes  the  demand  for  the  superman. 
Unwarned  by  the  fate  of  Germany,  where  a  com- 
munistic philosophy  created  as  its  natural  counter- 
part the  cult  of  the  superman,  we  lend  an  ear  to 
the  advice  of  Alphonso  of  Castile : 

' '  Earth  crowded  cries,  Too  many  men ! 
My  counsel  is,  kill  nine  of  ten — 
And  bestow  the  shares  of  all 
On  the  remnant  decimal. 
Add  their  nine  lives  to  this  cat, 
Stuff  their  nine  brains  in  one  hat ; 
Make  his  frame  and  forces  square 
With  the  labors  he  must  dare. 
Thatch  his  flesh,  and  even  his  years, 
AVith  the  marble  which  he  rears. 
There  growing  slowl}^  old  at  ease 
No  faster  than  his  planted  trees ; 
He  may  by  warrant  of  his  age 
In  schemes  of  broader  scope  engage. 
So  shall  ye  have  a  man  of  the  sphere 
Fit  to  grace  the  solar  year." 

But  on  the  whole  we  do  not  take  kindly  to  the 

34 


The  College  and  the  Individual 

pinched  bud  theory  of  creating  the  individual 
leaders  which  the  state  requires.  And  just  at 
present,  as  the  result  of  the  war,  there  is  a  decided 
reaction  against  supermen  in  general.  We  are  a 
little  skeptical  about  infallible  leaders,  and  feel 
we  would  rather  trust  our  destinies  to  a  team  of 
several  individuals  of  good  average  strength  than 
to  a  team  with  a  star  so  big  that  only  satellites 
can  approach. 

Demolins,  in  the  book  which  made  such  a  stir 
twenty  years  ago,  raised  the  question.  To  what  is 
Anglo-Saxon  superiority  due?  and  found  the  an- 
swer to  his  question  in  the  individualism  of  the 
Anglo-Saxon.  In  the  fact  that  instead  of  the  com- 
munity predominating  over  the  individual,  the 
individual  has  been  made  to  prevail  over  the  com- 
munity, private  life  over  public  life,  the  useful 
professions  over  liberal  and  administrative  pro- 
fessions. To  the  Saxon  farmer,  the  eligible  life  is 
the  rural  estate,  on  which  the  individual  is  per- 
fectly independent  of  his  neighbors  and  of  the 
political  chiefs. 

Alfred  the  Great,  himself,  cannot  enroll  in  his 
army  any  but  the  Saxons  who  are  willing,  and 
who  have  an  interest  to  serve,  or  who  consider 
that  the  cause  of  war  is  worth  fighting  for.  All 
are  land-owners.  All  equal  in  rights.  The  Saxon 
institution  of  trial  by  jury  begins  spontaneously 
between  neighboring  land  owners.  Against  the 
Dane,  the  Saxon  claimed  self-government. 
Against  the  Norman,  the  Saxon  claimed  five 
fundamental   rights:     (1)    That    of   bequeathing 

35 


The  College  and  the  Individual 

their  property  to  their  descendants  without  con- 
trol (2)  To  be  taxed  within  the  limit  of  their 
ability  to  pay.  (3)  To  receive  payment  for  any 
compulsory  work  they  were  made  to  do.  (4)  To 
be  left  to  transact  business  amongst  themselves 
according  to  their  old  Saxon  customs.  (5)  That 
they  should  be  left  the  exercise  of  justice  even 
towards  any  of  their  fellows  against  whom  a  Nor- 
man preferred  any  complaint. 

To  secure  these  rights  they  made  an  alliance 
with  the  Norman  nobility  against  the  autocracy 
of  a  Nomian  king,  and  the  result  was  Magna 
Charta. 

Soon  there  was  but  one  language — the  Saxon 
language,  and  one  law,  the  Saxon  common  law. 

To-day  Anglo-Saxon  individualism  is  threatened 
both  in  England  and  America  by  a  communistic 
philosophy  of  the  eligible  life  made  in  Germany. 
Socialism  is  essentially,  as  Demolins  pointed  out 
long  before  the  war,  a  product  of  German  origin 
and  manufacture.  "Its  center  of  formation  is  in 
Germany;  it  is  from  Germany  that  it  permeates 
the  world." 

Self-reliance  is  the  Anglo-Saxon  idea  of  the 
eligible  life.  Reliance  on  the  state  is  the  social- 
istic ideal  of  the  eligible  life.  It  is  a  dream  of  a 
"society  in  which  the  state  should  regulate  and 
organize  more  or  less  labor,  property,  make  happy 
one  and  all  by  playing  the  role  of  a  great  universal 
employer."  Under  this  ideal  of  the  eligible  life, 
we  shall  all  develop  more  or  less  the  traits  and 
ambitions,  or  lack  of  ambitions,  which  now  char- 

36 


The  College  and  the  Individual 

acterize  the  great  army  of  government  clerks  in 
Washington.  Or  according  to  the  hopeful  view  of 
Fitzgerald,  we  shall  be  children  enough  to  work 
our  heads  off  for  a  strip  of  blue  ribbon. 

"The  more  a  man  obeys  an  inclination  to  rely 
on  help  from  others,"  says  Demolins,  ''from  the 
community  or  the  state,  the  less  is  his  force  of 
initiative  developed,  the  less  is  he  inclined  to  exert 
himself  personally  to  make  a  livelihood.  The 
community  may  be  a  convenient  pillow  for  those 
societies  which  are  content  to  slumber;  it  never 
yet  helped  the  rise  of  any." 

These  two  philosophies  of  life  are  now  in  con- 
flict with  America  as  the  rich  prize  for  the  victor. 
The  communistic  philosophy  has  been  making  the 
greater  gains  of  recent  years.  This  is  partly  due 
to  the  fact  that  while  as  good  Anglo-Saxons  we 
kept  religion  out  of  the  hands  of  the  state,  we 
have  surrendered  its  twin  sister,  education,  more 
and  more  into  the  hands  of  government.  In  Penn- 
sylvania to-day,  the  particularists,  the  individual- 
ists, are  almost  ready  to  lay  down  the  burden  of 
higher  education  as  too  heavy  for  their  shoulders, 
and  ask  the  state  to  assume  it.  It  will  mean  a 
great  stride  forward  in  Pennsylvania  for  educa- 
tion, but  also  for  the  communistic  philosophy.  It 
will  place  a  heavier  burden  and  responsibility  on 
the  isolated  garrisons  in  such  outposts  as  Lafay- 
ette to  take  up  the  battle  of  the  Saxon,  and  stand 
more  stubbornly  than  ever,  for  the  rights  and  re- 
sponsibilities of  the  individual.  We  must  preach 
anew  from  Cromwell's  text,  "What  liberty  and 

37 


35167S 


The  College  and  the  Individual 

prosperity  depend  upon,  are  the  souls  of  men,  and 
the  spirits  which  are  the  men."  It  makes  it  im- 
portant that  we  emphasize  anew  man  as  the  unit 
of  college  reckoning.  In  mathematics  you  can  get 
units  by  adding  together  fractions,  but  you  can't 
do  it  in  politics.  Colorless  ciphers  headed  by  a 
unit  may  count  a  million,  but  without  a  unit  either 
before  or  behind  them,  they  are  nothing.  It  is 
better  that  the  unit  be  before  than  behind.  Lead- 
ers are  more  needed  in  a  democracy  than  backers, 
as  some  presidential  candidates  are  learning. 
Even  if  the  Saxon  fight  for  individualism  goes 
against  us  in  the  world  outside,  and  we  are  over- 
whelmed by  the  onrushing  tide  of  communism, 
we,  here  at  Lafayette,  recognizing  that  nowhere 
are  great  leaders  more  needed  than  in  a  pure 
democracy,  nowhere  do  they  have  greater  power 
while  it  lasts,  may  still  pursue  undisturbed,  our 
task  of  creating  individuals,  of  making  leaders, 
of  computing  the  worth  of  the  college  by  the  men 
it  can  produce. 

We  can  still  teach  here  the  doctrine.  Be  a  per- 
son and  respect  others  as  persons.  Then  we  shall 
have  respect  for  organizations  and  institutions. 
It  is  the  man  who  rates  society  as  everything 
and  the  individual  as  nothing,  who  is  ready  to 
adulate  the  one  individual,  who  personifies  society, 
be  he  king  or  president,  to  endow  him  with  super- 
human attributes,  to  raise  him  to  absolute  do- 
minion, and  to  roll  all  the  responsibilities  of 
government  upon  his  shoulders. 

It  is  the  man  who  has  learned  to  respect  him- 

38 


The  College- and  the  Individual 

self  and  all  other  men  as  individuals,  who  is  not 
willing  to  yield  his  own  rights,  and  who  is  ready, 
therefore,  to  concede  rights  to  others — who  has 
faith  in  republican  institutions  made  for  men  no 
more  infallible  than  himself,  liable  to  err  but  on 
the  whole  honest  and  men  of  good  will. 

Lafayette  College  is  peculiarly  fitted  to 
champion  individualism.  She  bears  the  name  of 
a  great  individualist  whose  faith  in  freedom  was 
fanned  to  flame  by  the  idle  mirth  of  a  German 
princeling  over  the  ludicrous  arrogance  of  a  few 
poor  colonists  in  rebelling  against  a  mighty 
society. 

In  no  subject  has  her  scholarship  attained  a 
more  assured  position  than  in  the  study  of  Anglo- 
Saxon  words  and  roots.  It  would  not  be  strange 
if  in  the  place  where  the  language  was  most  as- 
siduously studied,  stray  seeds  of  Saxon  spirit 
should  find  rebirth  and  rooted  deep  in  knowledge 
and  in  reverence,  grow  a  mighty  tree  for  the  heal- 
ing of  the  nations. 

When  in  combination  w^ith  her  French  in- 
dividualistic inspiration,  her  deep-going  Saxon 
roots,  you  find  the  Presbyterian  Scot  on  the  walls, 
you  may  be  sure  of  a  fair  field,  a  broad  tolerance 
and  freedom  of  disputation. 

For  say  what  you  may  of  the  restricting  bonds 
of  church  relationship,  a  wide  experience  will  show 
that  her  tolerance  will  stand  comparison  wdtli  the 
tolerance  of  private  individuals  or  of  government 
officials,  or  of  fickle  mobs.  Like  Carlyle,  we  can 
say.  If  I  must  trust  the  holding  of  the  tourney 

39 


The  College  and  the  Individual 

to  some  group,  "1  take  up  with  my  old  love  for 
the  saiuts.  No  class  of  persous  can  be  found  in 
this  country  with  so  nnicli  humanity  in  them,  nay 
with  as  much  tolerance  as  the  better  sort  of  them 
have.  The  tolerance  of  others  is  but  doubt  and 
indifference.  Touch  the  thing  they  do  believe  and 
value — their  own  self-conceit — they  are  rattle- 
snakes then." 

With  my  associates  of  the  faculty,  and  with,  I 
trust,  the  cordial  support  and  cooperation  of  trus- 
tees and  alumni,  w^e  shall  strive  in  the  years  to 
come,  to  make  it  our  motto  at  Lafayette  "not  to 
indoctrinate  but  to  individuate. ' ' 

I  count  it  a  privilege  that  unexpected  circum- 
stances devolved  on  me  to-day  the  task  of  address- 
ing this  graduating  class.  With  the  help  of  the 
war,  the  class  contains  men  of  more  strength  and 
individuality  than  the  ordinary  routine  can  per- 
haps produce.  It  is  a  pleasure  to  use  such  meas- 
uring rods  in  telling  the  cubits  of  this  cielestial 
city  of  ours. 

As  you  plan  for  an  eligible  life,  and  as  you  look 
out  on  our  seething  political  world,  remember 
Shelley's  words: 

' '  What  are  numbers  knit 
By  force  or  custom?     Man  who  man  would  be 
]\rust  rule  the  empire  of  himself,  In  it 
Must  be  supreme,  establishing  his  throne 
On  vanquished  will,  quelling  the  anarchy 
Of  hopes  and  fears,  being  himself  alone." 

Remember  that  no  coach  can  make  a  strong  team 

40 


The  College  and  the  Individual 

out  of  weak  men,  though  he  can  make  a  better 
team  than  they  can  make  of  themselves.  That  no 
state  can  long  remain  great  which  fetters  the 
growth  of  great  individuals.     That 

"Navies  nor  armies  can  exalt  the  state 
MiUions  of  men,  nor  coined  wealth  untold 
Down  to  the  pit  may  sink  a  land  of  gold. 
But  one  great  name  can  make  a  country  great. ' ' 

And  go  forth  to  conquer  and  to  serve — go  forth 
to  your  task  of  individuation : 

"Go  forth  upon  the  earth 

And  make  there  Paradise 

And  be  the  angels  of  that  place 

To  make  men  glad  and  wise, 

With  loving  kindness  in  their  hearts 

And  knowledge  in  their  eyes. 

And  ye  shall  be  man's  counselors 

That  neither  rest  nor  sleep. 

To  cheer  the  lonely,  lift  the  frail, 

And  solace  them  that  weep. 

And  ever  on  his  wandering  trail 

Your  watch-fires  ye  shall  keep ; 

Till  in  the  far  years,  man  shall  find 

The  country  of  his  quest. 

The  empire  of  the  open  truth. 

The  vision  of  the  best. 

Foreseen  by  every  mother  dear 

With  her  new-born  on  her  breast." 

(Bliss  Carman,  "The  Angels  of  Man") 


41 


THE  COLLEGE  OF  GROWTH 

IT  is  with  very  groat  pleasure  that  I  meet  again, 
even  in  this  formal  way,  the  upper  classmen. 
I  trust  we  shall  come  to  know  each  other  better 
than  was  possible  last  year  because  of  the  ac- 
quaintances I  then  had  to  make  outside  the  col- 
lege.    I  feel  that  I  know  you  collectively  very 
much  better  than  I  did  a  year  ago,  but  I  cannot 
but  regret  that  nowadays  the  w^ork  of  a  college 
president  is  so  much  that  of  a  minister  of  foreign 
affairs.     I  begin  this  year  feeling  fairly  well  ac- 
quainted with  the  faculty  and  buildings  and  alumni 
of  Lafayette.     I  hope,  before  the  year  is  over,  to 
feel  fairly  well  acquainted  with  individual  stu- 
dents.    If,  however,  freshmen  continue  to  come  in 
such  numbers,  you  will  realize  that  even  though  I 
should  make  the  acquaintance  of  a  new  man  each 
day  of  the  college  year,  and  should  forget  no  one 
whom  I  had  met,  it  would  require  the  whole  col- 
lege year  to  meet  the  freshman  class  individually. 
I  trust,  therefore,  that  you  will  share  the  task 
with  me,  and  if  I  cannot  know  every  student,  that 
every  student  will  know  me  and  feel  that  the  presi- 
dent is  at  least  a  potential  friend  and  very  ready 
to  help. 

You  have,  perhaps,  seen  a  series  of  cartoons 

Address  at  the  opening  of  Lafayette  College,  September,  1916. 

42 


The  College  of  Growth 

running  in  some  of  the  papers,  under  the  caption 
''When  a  feller  needs  a  friend.'^  I  think  perhaps 
the  most  amusing  series  of  all  might  be  drawn  by 
college  men,  or  at  mij  rate  by  a  college  president. 
I  trust,  however,  that  you  will  feel  "when  a  feller 
needs  a  friend,"  that  the  president  is  accessible 
to  any  of  you. 

Lafayette  College  bears  the  name  of  a  man  who 
made  his  great  decision  and  undertook  his  adven- 
turous voyage  to  America,  when  no  older  than  the 
average  American  boy  when  he  enters  college. 
True  to  its  name,  Lafayette  is  a  young  man's 
college.  Masculine  in  name  and  tradition,  it  ad- 
mits only  men.  Its  student  body  numbers  six 
hundred  and  it  is  the  purpose  of  the  trustees  by 
strict  enforcement  of  entrance  requirements,  and 
by  the  maintenance  of  a  relatively  high  scale  of 
college  fees,  to  prevent  the  number  rising  much 
beyond  this  limit. 

True  to  its  name  again,  the  contribution  which 
Lafayette  proposes  to  make  to  America  is  one  of 
quality,  not  of  quantity.  The  Marquis  Lafayette 
was  worth  more  to  the  American  cause  than  a 
whole  regiment  would  have  been.  The  adminis- 
tration hopes  in  a  few  years  to  be  in  a  position 
to  select  its  student  body  with  the  same  care  with 
which  it  now  selects  its  faculty.  It  is  more  of  a 
privilege  to  attend  Lafayette  now  than  you  recog- 
nize. It  will  be  a  privilege  more  difficult  of  at- 
tainment in  the  future  than  in  the  past.  The 
young  man  of  to-day  can  assume  the  name  of  a 
Lafayette  man,  mth  the  moral  certainty  that  the 

43 


Tlic  College  of  Growth 

iiaine  will  i^row  in  worth  and  lanie  in  the  years 
to  como.  With  one  of  the  largest  student  bodies 
gathered  in  any  independent  American  college  for 
men,  the  ambition  of  Lafayette  is  not  to  become 
a  University  but  to  maintain  the  ideals  of  the 
small  college.  Whenever  it  is  a  question  between 
quantity  and  quality,  between  size  and  thorough- 
ness, we  propose  to  sacrifice  quantity  for  quality. 

Such  an  ideal  is  contrary  to  the  more  dominant 
ideals  of  American  life  up  to  this  time.  As  Lord 
Br^xe  has  justly  observed:  "Foreign  critics 
often  say  and  some  domestic  critics  have  echoed 
the  censure,  that  what  is  chiefl}^  admired  in 
America  is  bigness,  things  being  measured  by  their 
size  or  by  what  they  cost.  This  quantitative  esti- 
mate finds  little  place  in  the  colleges  and  univer- 
sities. With  very  few  exceptions,  the  teaching 
staff  are  not  thinking  of  size,  nor  of  money,  ex- 
cept so  far  as  it  helps  to  extend  the  usefulness  of 
their  institution.  All  the  better  men,  and  not 
merely  the  ablest  men,  but  the  good  average  men, 
feel  that  it  is  the  mission  of  a  college  or  university 
to  seek  and  find  and  set  forth  the  real  values." 

It  is  hard,  hoAvever,  in  a  great  democracy  like 
ours  to  preserve  faith  in  quality,  unless  the  quality 
be  expressed  also  in  quantity.  It  is  the  automo- 
bile manufacturer  who  can  make  a  half  million 
good  cars  who  reaps  the  big  profits.  It  is  the 
novelist  whose  book  sells  by  the  half  million  w^ho 
is  acclaimed  the  great  author.  It  is  the  five  cent 
weekly,  it  is  the  five  and  ten-cent  theater,  it  is  the 
five  and  ten-cent  store,  w^hich  reflect  the  demands 

44 


The  College  of  Growth 

01  our  democratic  age.  To  be  truly  democratic,  to 
attain  success  in  a  democracy,  means  to  be  uni- 
versal, it  would  seem.  Is  it  wise  then  even  in  edu- 
cation to  deliberately  set  a  standard  of  quality 
superior  to  the  popular  demand? 

Again,  is  it  wise  in  a  growing  country  to  de- 
liberately propose  to  check  growth?  To  the  great 
war  convulsing  the  world  to-day  we  look  for  light 
on  the  question  whether  a  nation  to  be  healthy, 
must  increase  in  area,  in  population,  in  wealth, 
whether  aggrandizement  is  the  law  of  this  world, 
and  whether  the  choice  lies  merely  between  ag- 
grandizing or  being  aggrandized.  We  are  in- 
clined to  think  that  the  real  is  the  moving,  not 
that  which  is  standing  still ;  and  that  it  is  a  world 
which  has  forgotten  its  physics,  and  the  true  mean- 
ing of  the  law  of  inertia,  that  thinks  it  is  more 
natural  to  stand  still,  than  to  move.  To  the  scien- 
tist of  to-day,  the  universe  is  a  universe  of  forces, 
not  of  things ;  and  the  biologist,  and  chemist,  and 
even  the  physicist  threaten  to  crowd  the  geologist 
from  his  relative  repose.  What  then  of  this  per- 
petual motion,  of  this  striving  and  energizing, 
must  we  go  forward  lest  we  go  back,  must  we  get 
lest  we  be  gotten,  must  we  kill  or  be  killed,  rule 
or  obey? 

What  of  the  possibility  of  substituting  internal 
improvement  for  external  growth,  what  of  substi- 
tuting quality  for  quantity,  what  of  seeking  per- 
fection instead  of  seeking  to  be  great?  Is  perfec- 
tion like  the  perfection  of  the  flower,  but  the  pre- 
lude to  decay?     Consider  the  lilies  of  the  field, 

45 


The  College  of  Growth 

whon  tlu'V  arc  most  pcrft't't  their  docay  is  the  iicjir- 
est. 

These  are  questions  wliieh  tlie  world  is  asking 
to-day,  and  asking  more  seriously  than  ever  be- 
fore. There  was  a  time  when  knowledge  was  pro- 
vincial. If  the  facts  of  our  nation  did  not  square 
with  our  theories,  we  could  always  hope  that  that 
was  a  local  })henoinen()n  and  did  not  reflect  the 
truth  of  the  world.  If  the  facts  of  our  day  did 
not  square  with  our  theories,  we  could  hope  that 
was  a  temporary  disturbance  or  aberration  in  the 
current  of  events.  But  as  knowledge  grows  and 
means  of  communication  improve,  and  printing 
makes  universally  available  the  experience  of  men 
through  the  ages,  we  are  more  hard  pressed,  in  our 
efforts  to  maintain  a  philosophy  which  does  not 
account  for  all  the  facts  of  life  that  we  know. 

We  cannot  hope  to  settle  the  broader  question 
this  morning  for  nations  or  even  institutions,  but 
perhaps  we  may  make  a  suggestion  or  two  regard- 
ing the  individual.  ''Ver\^  early,"  says  Margaret 
Fuller,  "I  perceived  that  the  object  of  life  was  to 
grow."  It  is  easier  to  perceive  that  early  than 
it  is  late,  if  by  growth  we  mean  growth  of  stature. 
Probably  a  good  many  of  the  freshmen  are  here 
to-day  with  the  words  of  parents  and  friends  ring- 
ing in  their  ears.  Yon  are  now  a  full  grown  man, 
or  I  hope  you  will  grow  into  a  well  developed  man 
as  the  result  of  your  course  at  college.  One  way 
or  the  other  you  are  thinking  of  growth,  either 
that  you  are  grown  up,  or  that  you  hope  to  grow 
into  full  manhood.    And  vou  know  enough  popular 

46 


The  College  of  Growth 

biology  to  know  that  growth  is  dependent  on  get- 
ting your  share  and  assimilating  it,  or  turning  it 
to  your  own  uses.  But  if  you  go  on  further  you 
know  that  growth  is  not  a  question  of  increasing 
size,  but  of  increasing  the  complexity  of  organiza- 
tion, of  forming  more  associations,  of  discovering 
likenesses  and  dissimilarity,  of  ordering  and 
classifying  and  labeling.  Still  you  must  get,  still 
you  must  assimilate,  but  the  amount  of  cruder 
stuff,  food  and  physical  comforts  which  you  can 
use  to  advantage  is  strictly  limited.  A  nice  bal- 
ance must  be  maintained  or  your  more  delicate 
machinery  will  not  work.  If  your  appetites  are 
the  same  as  those  when  you  were  growing  in 
stature,  there  will  be  no  mental  growth.  Then,  as 
Dante  says  in  the  Divine  Comedy, 

* '  Blessed  are  they,  whom  grace 

Doth  so  ilhimine,  that  appetite  in  them 

Exhaleth  no  inordinate  desire, 

Still  hungering  as  the  rule  of  temperance  wills." 

Still  there  is  growth  but  it  is  growth  in  knowl- 
edge, in  power,  in  self-mastery,  in  discipline  of 
the  whole  self  and  all  its  instruments. 

And  later  still  will  come  a  diminishing  in  these 
appetites.  Knowledge  will  seem  as  surfeiting  as 
too  much  oatmeal.  Power  which  cannot  bring 
back  youth  will  seem  after  all  futile. 

But  still  in  the  healthy  soul  there  will  be  growth. 
If  the  physical  and  intellectual  appetites  have  not 
been  gorged,  and  the  self  spoiled  by  over  indul- 
gence, there  will  have  been  growing,  like  the  slow 

47 


The  College  of  Growth 

growing  pines  under  the  first  growth  of  poplar,  or 
the  second  growth  of  maple  and  birch,  spiritual 
appetites  ready  to  be  fed  with  truth  and  beauty 
and  goodness,  of  which  this  world  affords  just 
enough  of  a  foretaste  to  whet  the  appetite  and 
leave  the  soul  ready  for  the  full  enjoyment  of  an- 
other sphere. 

No,  so  far  as  the  individual  is  concerned,  what- 
ever may  be  true  of  nations  or  of  institutions,  to 
discover  that  we  have  stopped  growing  physically 
is  not  to  lay  on  the  shelf  that  truth  of  Margaret 
Fuller's,  ''Very  early,  I  perceived  that  the  object 
of  life  is  to  grow."  If  you  will  take  this  as  a  key, 
it  will  unlock  many  of  your  college  problems. 

Let  us  say  of  ourselves  and  of  our  college,  "our 
object  is  to  grow."  The  condition  of  membership 
in  the  community  shall  be  growth.  "Whatever 
stunts  growth,  prematurely  ages,  dulls  appetite, 
throws  the  human  machine  out  of  balance,  will  be 
excluded  so  far  as  possible.  Appetite  for  a  cer- 
tain amount  of  intellectual  food  will  be  taken  to  in- 
dicate a  health}^  condition  and  a  normal  appetite. 
The  absence  of  such  appetite  will  indicate  that 
conditions  are  not  favorable  to  growth  and  that  a 
change  of  air  and  of  food  is  desirable. 

Like  the  tree  transplanted  from  the  nursery  or 
the  radish  or  the  cabbage  plant  transplanted  from 
the  family  to  the  isolation  of  the  field  you  may 
think  that  you  have  attained  growth,  because  you 
have  been  pulled  up  by  the  rooj;s  when  you  have 
only  attained  a  chance  to  grow.  You  may  think 
vou  are  free  as  air  because  you  are  away  by  your- 

48 


The  College  of  Growth 

self  at  college  and  nothing  fastens  your  roots,  but 
unless  like  the  tree,  and  the  radish  and  the  cabbage 
you  can  establish  new  associations,  unless  your 
roots  can  take  hold  of  new  soil,  you  will  not  retain 
even  the  growth  that  you  now  have.  Cabbages 
start  life  well  gregariously,  but  if  you  want  all 
round  development,  if  you  want  your  cabbage 
plant  to  head,  you  must  transplant  it  at  the  right 
period  and  you  must  give  it  enough  isolation, 
enough  freedom  from  other  members  of  the  same 
family,  to  permit  the  expansion  to  the  full  of  all 
that  is  within  it.  Men  are  not  unlike  cabbages. 
Transplanting  often  produces  astonishing  results. 
If  students  are  to  continue  to  grow,  however, 
the  college  itself  must  grow,  but  not  necessarily  in 
numbers,  as  the  students  need  not  necessarily  grow 
in  stature.  To  be  a  young  man^s  college,  as 
Lafayette  is  by  name  and  nature,  means  to  be  a 
growing  college,  a  college  of  change  and  adapta- 
tion. Some  times  just  as  young  men  who  come  to 
college  think  they  are  full  grown,  so  the  college 
makes  the  mistake  of  thinking  that  it  is  a  com- 
munity of  grown-up  men,  of  students  and  faculty 
who  have  attained  growth,  who  know  what  is  good, 
and  true  and  beautiful,  and  who  have  no  need  for 
change  and  experiment.  This  is  to  lose  what  is 
best  in  college  life.  Faculty  and  students  are  ad- 
venturers together  in  the  fields  of  knowledge. 
The  atmosphere  of  the  college  must  be  expecta- 
tion, exploitation.  The  faculty  are  not  keepers  of 
a  safe  deposit  vault  from  which  they  bring  forth 
for  the  new  generation  treasures,  new  and  old,  but 

49 


The  College  of  Growth 

gardeners  in  a  garden  of  life.  On  all  sides  of  the 
college  campus  there  should  be  gates  over  which 
should  hang  signs  bidding  welcome  to  anything 
that  comes  with  a  face  not  seen  before.  Stored  as 
its  warehouses  are  with  all  that  thought  and  ex- 
perience have  found  worth  while  in  the  past,  nour- 
ished from  this  inexhaustible  store,  the  college 
does  not  shrink  from  the  strange  or  unexpected. 
Its  life  stands  in  no  precariously  balanced  equi- 
librium, ready  to  lose  its  balance  at  an  unexpected 
shock  from  any  quarter.  Its  life  is  a  life  of 
motion,  of  growth,  of  assimilation;  it  grasps  and 
uses  the  new,  and  swings  it  to  its  own  ends.  Prove 
all  things,  hold  fast  that  which  is  good  is  the  motto 
of  the  college  for  young  men. 

Soil  and  site  are  important  for  the  college  of 
growth.  The  soil  here  is  Presbyterian.  In  the 
future,  as  in  the  past,  Lafayette  will  declare  itself 
frankly  Presbyterian,  and  stand  in  religion,  in 
education,  in  government,  for  those  ideals  of  in- 
telligence, independent  judgment,  representative 
government,  duty,  tolerance,  cooperation,  and  the 
divine  significance  and  purpose  of  the  world  with 
which  ideals  the  name  has  been  associated 
throughout  the  history  of  modern  times.  It  is 
hoped  that  its  Presbyterianism  will  be  shown  also 
by  the  fact  that  in  the  future,  as  in  the  past, 
young  men  of  all  denominations  will  find  them- 
selves equally  welcome  and  able  to  live  in  com- 
l^lete  accord  and  mutual  respect. 

As  to  site,  it  is  well  for  the  college  of  growth 
to  stand  somewhat  back  from  the  village  street, 

50 


The  College  of  Growth 

or,  better  still,  on  a  somewhat  inaccessible  hill. 
Talent  grows  best  in  quiet.  The  world  is  too 
much  with  us,  early  and  late  we  lay  waste  our 
powers,  if  the  college  stands  where  it  is  overrun 
with  the  currents  of  the  day  hurrying  on  their 
petty  errands.  Not  every  scarehead  of  the  day's 
news  is  worth  the  attention  of  the  college  of 
growth,  not  every  passing  bubble,  but  only  those 
irresistible,  swelling  tides  which  creep  almost  un- 
observed up  the  hillside,  only  those  goings  of  the 
winds  of  the  spirit  which  shake  the  treetops,  not 
the  litter  in  the  gutter,  only  the  clouds  which  those 
not  too  intimate  with  the  affairs  of  the  day,  detect 
on  the  horizon,  and  which  all  appreciate,  but  ap- 
preciate too  late,  when  the  cyclone  is  whirling  on 
the  pavement. 

Where  the  college  boy  shall  live  within  college 
walls,  particularly  where  the  freshman  shall  live, 
is  a  much  debated  question.  Dormitory  versus 
fraternity  house  is  a  subject  of  debate  with  much 
to  be  said  on  both  sides.  If  there  is  more  democ- 
racy and  wider  acquaintanceship  in  the  dormitory, 
there  is  more  of  home,  more  elder  brother  solici- 
tude, more  security  from  hazing,  more  of  the  disci- 
pline of  fagging,  in  the  fraternity  house.  Here 
again  we  may  apply  our  touchstone  and  ask  but 
where  does  the  boy  grow  more?  To  this  my  an- 
swer is,  the  freshman  grows  more  in  the  dormi- 
tory, and  I  trust  the  time  will  come  at  Lafayette 
when  fraternities  will  have  no  rooms  for  fresh- 
men. A  fraternity  house  is  a  home,  only  on  a 
little  larger  scale  than  the  freshman  has  just  left. 

51 


The  College  of  Growth 

The  freshman  needs  a  wider  experience.  He 
needs  to  know  men  not  of  his  own  kind,  or  social 
station  or  simihir  tastes,  but  men  of  as  many  dif- 
ferent kinds  as  he  can  come  into  contact  with,  if 
he  is  to  understand  the  world.  When  he  has  an 
opportunity  to  know  tw^o  hundred  men,  it  is  a  pity 
that  he  should  limit  himself  to  twenty.  More  com- 
fortable he  may  be  in  the  fraternity  house,  but 
still  more  comfortable  would  he  probably  be  at 
home.  Growth  in  the  directions  stimulated  by 
fraternity  life  will  come  as  well  in  the  last  three 
years.  The  cruder,  more  elemental  growth,  which 
will  come  from  the  democracy  of  dormitory  life 
must  come  first,  if  it  is  to  come  at  all.  My  answer, 
therefore,  to  the  question,  where  should  the  fresh- 
man live,  is  in  the  dormitorj^  if  he  wants  to  grow. 
To  the  question,  should  the  student  join  a  frater- 
nity my  answer  is,  yes,  if  he  can  afford  it,  and 
wants  to  grow  in  capacity  for  friendship,  for  close 
fellowship  w^ith  men,  and  in  the  amenities  of  life 
among  gentlemen. 

No  freshman  class  ever  entered  an  American 
college  at  a  more  interesting  time.  The  world  is 
convulsed  and  from  its  bitter  throes  a  new  era  mil 
be  born,  of  which  era  you,  if  you  do  not  stop 
growing,  will  be  a  part. 

To  quote  the  Divine  Comedy  again :  "It  was  an 
hour,  when  he  who  climbs,  had  need  to  walk  un- 
crippled." 

However  irresponsible  youth  may  be,  however 
unconscious  may  be  the  growth  they  experience  in 
college,  the  college  itself,  true  to  its  name  again, 

52 


The  College  of  Growth 

cannot  forget  that  life  is  serious,  and  that  the 
more  difficult  conditions  of  our  American  civiliza- 
tion, unpurged  of  dross  by  the  consuming  fire  of 
war,  demand  sterner  discipline,  both  intellectual 
and  moral,  if  her  youth  are  to  be  adequately  pre- 
pared to  play  their  part  in  the  world  of  to-mor- 
row. 

The^rst  consideration,  however,  will  be  to  give 
the  student  room  to  grow.  To  show  him  enough 
so  that  he  may  see  more,  to  open  unimagined 
vistas,  to  stir  new  questionings,  to  kindle  new  im- 
agination, to  give  him  technical  skill  and  accuracy 
in  the  use  of  the  tools  of  knowledge,  language  and 
mathematics. 

But,  above  all,  so  to  balance  the  requirements  of 
the  curriculum  that  the  student  may  not  only  not 
rust  from  lack  of  study,  but  may  also  not  be  too 
busy  studying  to  think,  or  to  learn  the  more  val- 
uable lessons  of  reflection,  and  profit  by  that  illum- 
ination which  comes  with  fellowship  and  the  inter- 
change of  opinion. 

Whatever  makes  for  the  full  development  of  the 
student,  for  his  growth  in  body,  in  physical 
strength,  in  resources  of  soul,  in  aspiration  of  the 
spirit,  in  accurate  knowledge,  in  technical  skill,  in 
command  of  the  methods  of  securing  knowledge 
and  of  the  tests  for  separating  true  knowledge 
from  false,  will  have  full  recognition  in  the  life  of 
the  growing  college. 

There  is  danger,  of  course,  in  letting  the  fresh- 
men know  that  they  have  come  to  college  to  grow. 
There  is  danger  that  like  children  they  will  be 

53 


The  College  of  Growth 

puHiiiii'  tlu'ir  cabbages  and  radishes  up  by  the 
roots  to  see  liow  they  progress,  and  will  become 
disgusted  that  the  days  have  so  little  to  show  of 
visible  growth. 

The  best  growth  comes,  of  course,  unconsciously. 
What  man,  by  taking  thought,  can  add  even  a  cubit 
to  his  stature,  and  how  nmch  less  can  a  man  be- 
come wise  by  watching  himself  become  so? 

Freshmen  given  this  secret  of  college  life  and 
purpose  will  be  tempted  to  judge  for  themselves 
that  to  spend  so  much  time  over  mathematics  or 
Latin,  or  German,  is  to  narrow  the  spirit,  to  bind 
it  with  the  commonplace  and  the  dullness  of 
routine,  so  that  it  will  become  hopelessly  cramped 
and  misshapen.  They  will  try  to  devise  aero- 
planes on  which  the  soul  can  soar  to  freer  atmos- 
pheres and  avoid  the  toilsome  footpath.  I  recog- 
nize this  danger,  and  I  can  but  warn  you  to  look 
back  over  the  way  you  have  come  and  ask  your- 
self how  far  your  conscious  care  and  invention 
have  added  to  your  stature,  and  by  what  thought 
you  have  shortened  the  years  required  to  reach 
your  six  feet  or  even  five  foot  eight. 

Then  recall  that  what  is  here  offered  for  your 
further  equipment  and  growth  represents  the  con- 
sensus of  many  minds  of  many  generations,  and 
m.ust  have  shown  itself  some  way  worth  while 
through  the  centuries. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  world  is  growing,  too, 
and  suitable  culture  proved  suitable  by  one  gen- 
eration may  not  be  the  best  possible  for  another 
generation.     No  faculty  of  a  growing  college  ever 

54 


The  College  of  Growth 

reaches  that  felicitous  state  of  mind  of  the  manu- 
facturer, who  advertises,  we  could  not  improve 
the  soap,  so  we  improved  the  box;  we  could  not 
improve  the  tobacco,  so  we  give  it  to  you  in  paper, 
instead  of  tinfoil;  we  could  not  improve  the  tooth 
paste,  so  we  make  the  slit  of  the  tube  flat,  instead 
of  round.  They  believe  that  the  content  of  the 
college  course  as  well  as  the  method  is  susceptible 
of  improvement,  though  some  may  add,  but  they 
would  like  to  see  the  man  that  could  convince  them 
of  the  desirableness  of  substituting  any  new  sub- 
ject for  the  old  tried  branch. 

We  build  a  new  chapel  not  because  we  feel  that 
the  spirit  of  worship  cannot  be  improved,  and 
therefore  w^e  improve  the  house  of  worship,  but  be- 
cause it  expresses  our  desire  to  improve  the  spirit 
of  worship.  We  put  the  catalogue  into  new  type 
not  because  the  content  of  the  old  catalogue  can- 
not be  improved  and  therefore  we  improve  the 
wrapping,  but  on  the  theory  that  new  wine  should 
go  into  new  bottles.  We  hope  some  day  to  build 
a  new  gymnasium,  not  because  we  expect  the 
freshmen  of  to-morrow  to  prove  necessarily  of 
greater  prowess  than  the  freshmen  of  yesterday, 
but  because  we  believe  that  the  athletic  spirit  and 
achievements  of  Lafayette  should  receive  worthy 
recognition  for  the  deeds  of  the  past,  and  every 
encouragement  for  the  future. 

The  best  you  can  do,  if  you  feel  that  you  are 
not  growing  as  you  should,  is  to  make  sure  that 
you  are  in  a  college  of  growth,  with  men  on  the 
lookout  for  the  new,  and  with  courage  to  use  what 


The  College  of  Growth 

experiiiuMil  justifu's,  and  Ihcu  be  content  to  grow 
along  with  your  urowini;-  rollege. 

You  may  rcnieniber  the  exporieuco  of  Alice  as 
she  tried  to  buy  the  Q^g  of  knowledge  from  the 
sheep  in  Looking  Glass  land.  Alice  was  back 
again  in  the  little  dark  shop.  ''I  should  like  to 
buy  an  egg,  please,"  she  said  timidly;  **how  do 
you  sell  them!"  ''Five  pence  farthing  for  one; 
twopence  for  two,"  the  sheep  replied.  "Then 
two  are  cheaper  than  one!"  Alice  said  in  a  sur- 
prised tone,  taking  out  her  purse.  "Only  you 
must  eat  them  both,  if  you  buy  two,"  said  the 
sheep.  "I'll  have  one  please,"  said  Alice,  as  she 
put  the  money  down  on  the  counter,  for  she 
thought  to  herself,  they  might  n  't  be  at  all  nice, 
you  know.  The  sheep  took  the  money  and  put  it 
away  in  a  box,  then  said,  ' '  I  never  put  things  into 
people's  hands — that  would  never  do — you  must 
get  it  for  yourself."  And  so  saying,  the  sheep 
went  off  to  the  other  end  of  the  shop  and  set  the 
Qgg  upright  on  a  shelf.  "I  wonder  why  it 
wouldn't  do,"  thought  Alice  as  she  groped  her 
way  among  the  tables  and  chairs,  for  the  shop 
was  very  dark  towards  the  end.  "The  Qgg  seems 
to  get  further  away  the  more  I  walk  towards  it. 
Let  me  see,  is  this  a  chair?  Why,  it  's  got 
branches,  I  declare !  How  very  odd  to  find  trees 
growing  here.  And  actually,  here  's  a  little  brook ! 
"Well,  this  is  the  very  queerest  shop  I  ever  saw." 
So  she  went  on  wondering  more  and  more  at  every 
step,  as  everything  turned  into  a  tree  the  moment 
she  came  up  to  it ! 

56 


The  College  of  Growth 

If  you  have  come  to  Lafayette  with  any  idea 
that  it  is  a  shop  where  you  can  put  your  money 
on  the  counter  and  have  your  egg  of  knowledge 
delivered  into  your  hand,  I  trust  you  may  have  the 
same  experience  as  Alice.  First  find  that  two 
eggs  are  sold  cheaper  than  one,  but  only  on  con- 
dition that  you  eat  both  eggs.  Second,  that  you 
must  get  the  eggs  off  the  shelf  for  yourself;  and 
third,  that  you  will  find  everything  you  come  in 
contact  with  on  your  way  to  the  shelf,  whether 
chairs  of  German,  or  history,  or  any  branch  of 
knowledge  or  faculty  or  students,  like  trees  grow- 
ing, so  will  you  know  that  you  have  come  to  a 
young  man's  college,  and  to  a  college  of  growth. 


57 


LIBERTY  AND  COOPERATION 

IT  is  customary  for  the  president  to  say  a  word 
of  welcome  at  this  time  to  the  newcomers  both 
in  the  faculty  and  in  the  student  body.     We  ex- 
pect  at  least   a   quarter  of  the   students   to   be 
strangers  each  fall,  but  it  does  not  often  happen, 
as  is  the  case  this  year,  that  a  quarter  of  the 
faculty  are  newcomers,  also.     It  is  the  beginning 
of  a  new  era  for  Lafayette  as  it  is  for  the  world 
outside,  and  it  is  with  some  seriousness,  there- 
fore, mindful  of  all  that   it  may  mean  for  the 
future  of  this  splendid  old  institution,  that  I  bid 
you   all   welcome   to   Lafayette   and   express   the 
earnest  hope  that  we  may  all  be  better  acquainted 
in  the  near  future,  share  a  mutual  confidence  in 
one  another,  and  be  firmly  bound  together  in  the 
earnest  resolve  to  make  this  a  society  of  scholars 
known  for  its  loyalty  to  whatsoever  things  are 
true,  honest,  just,  pure,  lovely,  or  of  good  report. 

We  are  glad  you  come  in  such  large  numbers. 
The  war  is  over,  but  the  tasks  before  the  Republic 
are  great.  It  is  a  good  omen  that  after  the  heart- 
searchings  and  world  visions  of  war,  so  many  of 
our  young  men  should  seek  better  mental  equip- 
ment in  preference  to  the  present  tempting  wages 
in  industry. 

Some  one,  I  think  it  was  the  Scientist  in  Lowes 


Address  at  the  opening  of  Lafavette  College,  September,  1919. 

58 


Liberty  and  Cooperation 

Dickinson's  '' Modern  Symposium,"  has  said, 
that  since  Biology  entered  the  scientific  field,  and 
we  began  to  think  biologically,  the  thought  of  the 
world  has  been  necessarily  optimistic,  and  directed 
to  the  future  rather  than  to  the  past,  because  it  is 
always  the  coming  generation  in  which  Biology  is 
interested.  "The  series  of  births  is  the  vehicle  of 
progress.  It  is  this  discovery  that  gives  to  our 
outlook  on  life  its  exhilaration  and  zest.  Our 
eyes  are  on  the  coming  generations ;  in  them  cen- 
ters our  hope  and  our  duty." 

No  biologist  can  think  of  the  golden  age  as  in  the 
past,  nor  of  the  future  as  darker  than  the  present, 
because  if  such  were  his  creed,  his  duty  would  be 
to  curtail  and  cut  off  life  rather  than  to  encourage 
it,  and  his  science  a  science  of  death  rather  than  of 
hfe. 

However  true  this  may  be  of  biologists  in  gen- 
eral, it  is  certainly  true  of  any  college  community 
worthy  of  the  name,  that  they  think  biologically  in 
this  respect,  that  their  hopes  are  always  in  the 
future,  and  that  they  preserve  an  unquenchable 
optimism  as  to  the  superior  possibilities  of  each 
new  lot  of  freshmen.  The  high  hopes  with  which 
you  enter  this  new  world,  therefore,  find  their 
counterpart  in  the  high  hopes  of  the  faculty  for 
what  you  are,  and  for  what  you  are  destined  to 
accomplish. 

In  a  spirit  of  optimism  in  spite  of  the  lowering 
clouds  in  the  world  about  us,  therefore,  I  have 
taken  as  the  subject  of  the  few  remarks  I  shall 
make  this  morning,  "Liberty  and  Cooperation," 

59 


Liberty  and  Cooperation 

two  ideals  in  which  wo  all  believe,  but  which  we 
sometimes  find  it  difficult  to  reconcile^ with  each 
other,  and  which  appear  just  now  to  be  locking 
horns  in  inevitable  conliict. 

I  often  wish  that  the  inventor  who  some  day 
will   give    us    an    apparatus    for   projecting    the 
thoughts  of  men  on  a  screen,  would  make  haste 
with  his  invention,  in  order  that  we  might  have 
some  true  picture  on  an  occasion  like  this,  of  the 
thoughts,  the  feelings,  the  hopes,  the  fears,  the  de- 
sires and  doubts  with  which  you  freshmen  step 
into  the  college  world.     We  of  the  faculty,  it  is 
true,  have  all  passed  through  similar  experiences, 
but  the  impressions  fade  like  an  old  photograph 
and  lose  their  clearness  and  sharpness  of  outline. 
I  have  sometimes  wondered  whether  the  flights  of 
steps  that  lead  up  the  hill  to  Pardee  ever  speak  to 
men's  souls  as  the  sacred  stairs  at  Rome  spoke  to 
Luther,   saying,  ''The  just  shall  live  by  faith," 
or  as  the  steps  of  our  capitol  at  Washington  spoke 
to  John  Stuart  Mill  of  a  treatise  on  Liberty.     For, 
as  he  tells  us  in  his  autobiography,  "It  was  in 
mounting  the  steps  of  the  capitol  that  the  thought 
first  arose  of  converting  my  short  essay  on  Liberty 
into  a  volume."     That  these  steps  ^\dll  some  day 
speak  some  such  great  word  to  some  man,  I  have 
no  question.     Perhaps  it  has  been  spoken  to  some 
one  of  you  new  men  to-day. 

There  is  significance  in  the  fact  that  we  say  a 
man  enters  college,  goes  into  college,  but  goes  out 
to  work,  goes  up  to  the  University  (as  they  say 
of  Oxford  or  Cambridge)  but  goes  dowTi  to  the 

60 


Liberty  and  Cooperation 

office,  and  we  have  to  rely  somewhat  in  the  absence 
of  our  projection  machine  on  such  incidental  hints 
of  attitudes  of  minds.  In  the  same  way  we  notice 
a  slight  shift  in  the  center  of  interest  in  the  fact 
that  an  Englishman  says,  ' '  Shall  we  go  in  to  din- 
ner?" while  an  American  says,  ''Shall  we  go  out 
to  dinner  T '  I  should  like  to  find,  if  I  could,  some 
such  revealing  hints  this  morning,  as  to  how  many 
of  you  freshmen  think  of  coming  to  college,  as  a 
stepping  out  into  a  larger  place,  and  how  many  of 
you  think  of  it,  as  entering  into  restricting  walls. 

Last  year,  when  to  enter  college  was  to  enter  the 
Students'  Army  Training  Corps  as  a  soldier  of  the 
United  States,  your  predecessors  may  perhaps 
have  thought  that  they  were  thereby  restricting 
their  freedom  and  placing  themselves  under 
orders.  At  the  same  time  they  may  have  thought 
they  were  thereby  exercising  the  greatest  liberty 
they  had  ever  enjoyed,  the  liberty  of  saying,  ''All 
that  I  am  or  hope  to  be,  even  life  itself,  I  lay  on 
the  altar  of  a  great  cause." 

Probably  you  have  not  thought  very  much  about 
the  subject  as  yet.  You  will,  I  hope,  think  more 
about  it  the  next  four  years,  and  I  shall  be  glad 
if  any  questions  I  may  raise  here  to-day  shall 
start  you  to  thinking  regarding  this  question  of 
liberty. 

The  whole  world  to-day  is  concerned  with  this 
question,  Under  what  conditions  can  I  enjoy 
liberty  ?  If  I  am  constrained,  what  constrains  me  ? 
Is  liberty  or  power  the  greater  good?  If  I  don^t 
want  to  be  ruled,  ought  I  to  rule  others'?     May  a 

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Liberty  and  Cooperation 

minority  set  any  bounds  to  the  power  of  a  major- 
ity to  rule  in  a  democracy?  May  each  organized 
trade  expknt  society  for  its  owti  benefit  and  be 
tile  judge  of  its  own  necessities?  May  an  organ- 
ized trade  deny  any  free  citizen  tlie  right  to  worli 
at  tliat  trade  except  as  a  member  of  the  organiza- 
tion and  under  sucli  terms  and  conditions  as  the 
organization  may  prescribe?  These  are  questions 
whicli  are  convulsing  the  whole  world  to-day. 
They  are  questions  which  go  to  the  root  of  life 
and  questions  which  all  thinking  men  must  face. 

For  a  college  bearing  the  name  of  Lafayette 
the  natural  watchword  is  Liberty.  Never  was 
there  a  more  consistent  believer  in  human  liberty. 
Never  was  there  a  man  less  influenced  by  circum- 
stance. What  was  good  for  the  French  and  Amer- 
ican was  in  his  eyes  good  for  the  Irishman  or  the 
Dutchman.  Much  as  he  admired  Napoleon's 
ability  to  rule,  he  felt  he  must  join  the  opposition 
when  Napoleon  proposed  to  exercise  that  power 
to  the  detriment  of  human  liberty.  Champion  of 
the  people  as  he  was,  he  defended  the  king  when 
the  mob  sought  to  substitute  mob  violence  for  law. 

Liberty  is  a  good  watchword,  and  I  trust  it 
will  be  an  ideal  for  which  this  college  will  always 
fight,  no  matter  wiiat  other  ideals  other  institu- 
tions may  champion.  I  think  it  may  be  well,  how- 
ever, for  us  to  stop  a  moment  to-day  and  consider 
our  ideal  in  the  light  of  another  ideal  very  popu- 
lar just  now  and  an  ideal  whose  worth  I  would  be 
the  last  to  deny.  This  is  the  ideal  of  cooperation. 
The  late  war  was  a  w^ar  of  allies,  on  both  sides. 

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Liberty  and  Cooperation 

Both  sides  claimed  the  name.  The  allied  German 
people  tried  to  insist  that  the  other  group  was 
only  an  entente,  not  a  real  alliance.  Both  sides, 
however  much  they  differed  on  other  things,  were 
agreed  that  allies  was  a  name  of  which  to  be 
proud. 

Of  nothing  in  her  share  in  the  war  does  Amer- 
ica boast  more  than  of  her  readiness  to  cooperate, 
and  of  the  fact  that  it  was  America  that  insisted 
that  all  should  fight  under  a  unified  command. 

The  great  Y.  M.  C.  A.  boasted  of  the  spirit  of 
cooperation,  and  the  gromng  admiration  for  co- 
operation finally  found  expression  in  the  United 
Drive  for  money  for  Y.  M.  C.  A.,  Knights  of  Co- 
lumbus, Jewish  Welfare,  etc.  Finally  America 
favors  a  League  of  Nations — and  is  ready  to  go 
farther  than  her  Republican  Senators  imagine  in 
subordinating  independence  to  cooperation. 

At  the  same  time  we  have  watched  the  growth 
of  the  great  labor  brotherhoods  and  trade  unions 
and  federations.  We  have  admired  the  willing- 
ness of  the  individual,  especially  the  more  ambi- 
tious and  gifted  individual,  to  join  a  union,  to 
limit  his  earnings  so  that  they  shall  not  exceed 
those  of  his  weaker  brother,  to  spend  if  need  be 
his  savings  that  strikes  may  be  won  and  the  gen- 
eral conditions  of  all  his  craft  improved.  We 
have  watched  the  creation  of  a  sentiment  which 
brands  a  man  as  an  outcast  who  has  no  union 
card,  just  as  the  sentiment  of  patriotism  brands 
as  outcast  the  man  without  a  countrv,  or  as  the 

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Liberty  and  Cooperation 

inquisition  braiidtHl  as  outcast  tlio  man  who  would 
not  tliink  as  the  Catholic  church  thought. 

Wo  have  scon  in  our  colleges  and  universities 
the  growth  of  friendliness  and  cooperation. 
There  is  not  the  same  hot  political  rivalry  between 
fraternity  and  non-fraternity  men  that  there  once 
was.  Faculty  and  students  dress  and  look  alike. 
Community  sentiment  is  more  important  than  in- 
dividual opinion  and  becomes  more  tyrannous  and 
exacting.  No  freshman  can  successfully  struggle 
against  the  freshman  cap  edict,  and  irreconcilables 
are  almost  unkno'^^ni  to-day  in  college  communities. 

"The  plague  of  uniformity  has  descended  upon 
our  colleges"  as  Robert  Louis  Stevenson  said 
some  years  ago,  and  we  find  the  ideal  of  individual 
liberty  at  a  discount,  the  ideal  of  cooperation  and 
group  conformity  at  a  premium. 

It  is  rather  important  for  us  to  Imow,  therefore, 
what  it  is  you  expect  to  find  in  college,  whether 
you  look  forward  to  enjojdng  liberty,  or  whether 
you  are  thinking  how  worthwhile  it  is  to  belong, 
to  belong  first  to  a  college  with  so  honored  a  name 
as  Lafayette,  to  belong  to  the  largest  class  which 
ever  entered,  to  belong  perhaps  to  this  or  that 
fraternity,  or  team,  literary  society,  or  boarding 
club. 

You  have  probably  heard  that  one  of  the  great 
advantages  of  going  to  college  is  the  associations 
and  friendships  that  you  form,  the  unconscious 
lessons  in  cooperation  w^hich  you  receive.  If  in- 
dividual liberty  is  uppermost  in  your  thought,  you 

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Liberty  and  Cooperation 

are  probably  wondering  how  far  you  will  be  let 
alone,  how  far  the  plans  of  your  classmates,  col- 
lege traditions,  officious  sophomores,  the  faculty, 
the  Dean,  laws  and  regulations  will  mar  the  pleas- 
ure of  being  your  own  master  and  of  testing  out 
your  various  powers  in  a  broader  world  of  experi- 
ence than  any  you  have  yet  known. 

If  some  one  asks  you  to  cooperate,  to  join  with 
others  for  some  good  end,  your  natural  question 
will  be,  what  becomes  of  liberty  if  I  cooperate? 
For  that  matter,  what  becomes  of  liberty  if  I  make 
an  engagement  with  one  friend,  much  more  if  I 
maintain  intimate  relations  with  six  or  eight?  If 
I  bind  myself  by  a  promise  to  be  at  March  Field 
at  three,  it  is  obvious  I  thereby  lose  the  liberty 
to  be  at  the  Circle  at  the  same  hour.  If  I  am  for 
liberty,  ought  I  not  to  stay  outside  a  fraternity 
lest  my  freedom  be  restricted  thereby?  If  I  am  a 
fraternity  man  is  it  not  a  descent  from  my  lofty 
isolation  if  I  attend  a  debate  or  allow  any  interests 
which  do  not  center  in  the  fraternity  to  command 
a  share  of  my  time  ? 

"We  know  that  the  fathers  of  our  country  were 
enthusiastic  believers  in  both  liberty  and  in  union. 
The  two  ideals  did  not  appear  to  them  incompat- 
ible. How  is  it  then,  that  in  our  own  day,  men 
seem  to  be  withdrawing  into  two  camps,  over  one 
of  which  floats  the  banner  of  individual  freedom, 
while  over  the  other  floats  the  equally  attractive 
banner  of  cooperation  and  fraternity.  How  is  it, 
that  men  are  asking  themselves  to-day,  how  shall 
T  harmonize  my  ideals  of  liberty  and  of  coopera- 

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Liberty  and  Cooperation 

tioii?  What  are  tlio  rights  of  the  individual  as 
ovtM-  against  tlie  desires  and  judgments  of  his 
group  ?  Ought  a  man  to  try  to  be  a  good  man,  or 
is  it  enough  to  be  a  good  student,  a  good  fraternity 
brother,  a  good  American,  a  good  policeman,  a 
good  railway  conductor,  a  good  and  loyal  member 
of  his  union?  Is  one  necessary  or  supplementary 
to  the  other,  or  are  they  at  times  mutually  exclu- 
sive? Is  there  any  universal  loyalty,  higher  than 
the  loyalty  to  the  group,  to  the  trade-union,  to  the 
college,  to  the  nation?  Can  we  bo  like  the  Stoics 
good  citizens  of  the  world  without  also  being  good 
Romans,  or  if  the  two  conflict  which  is  the  more 
important,  to  be  a  good  American  or  to  be  a  good 
covenanter.  The  trade-unionist  says,  why  should 
it  be  thought  any  greater  hardship  that  a  man  can- 
not escape  membership  in  a  trade-union  and  be 
governed  by  the  union's  laws,  than  that  he  cannot 
escape  citizenship  of  a  country  and  be  subject  to 
the  country's  laws?  If  nativity  carries  with  it 
membership  in  the  state,  why  should  not  occupa- 
tion carry  mth  it  membership  in  the  union? 
There  was  a  time  when  the  church  claimed  also 
that  to  be  a  citizen  of  a  Christian  country  was  ipso 
facto  to  be  a  subject  of  the  church.  Why  was  it 
that  man  rejected  this  doctrine  in  the  name  of 
freedom,  and  was  Protestantism  in  religion  and 
the  claim  of  the  right  of  individual  determination 
in  matters  of  religion  a  step  in  the  right  direction, 
or  was  it  a  mistake  brought  about  by  a  lack  of 
spirit  of  cooperation  and  unity? 
When  may  a  man  rebel  against  a  trade-union 

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Liberty  and  Cooperation 

and  set  up  an  economic  protestantism,  and  in  so 
doing  be  only  fighting  the  age  long  fight  of  free- 
dom, and  not  be  accused  of  betraying  the  interests 
of  the  many  for  his  own  selfish  benefit?  When 
may  a  man  stand  up  and  defy  a  college  tradition  as 
some  have  done  at  Princeton  and  Yale,  and  in  so 
doing,  be  doing  right  and  an  admirable  thing,  and 
when  ought  he  to  be  decried  as  uprooting  old  tra- 
ditions, and  setting  up  his  own  judgment,  like  a 
conceited  ass  in  opposition  to  the  will  of  the  great 
majority?  Is  there  any  test  of  the  nobility  of  the 
action  save  the  test  of  success — if  he  wins  he  is  a 
hero,  if  he  fails  he  is  a  traitor  and  a  rebel?  Is  a 
scab  necessarily  to  be  despised  as  a  large  part  of 
our  world  thinks,  or  may  there  be  nobleness  in 
his  action,  and  the  man  himself  good  stuff  for 
citizenship  in  a  free  republic? 

Is  it  true,  as  Mill  says,  that  we  must  recognize 
the  importance  to  man  and  society  of  a  large 
variety  in  types  of  character,  and  of  giving  full 
freedom  to  human  nature  to  expand  itself  in  in- 
numerable and  conflicting  directions?  Ought  the 
majority  always  to  rule?  Ought  the  students  to 
rule  the  college  because  they  outnumber  the 
faculty?  Ought  we  to  go  to  the  same  logical  ex- 
tremes as  in  Russia  and  put  it  to  the  vote  of  the 
students  what  they  will  study,  with  the  result  that 
mathematics  is  omitted  and  dancing  included,  and 
that  the  class  begins  when  the  majority  get  tired 
of  recess  play?  Shall  we  attempt  nothing  in  gov- 
ernment which  the  man  on  the  street  cannot  un- 
derstand and  does  not  approve?     Shall  we  teach 

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Liberty  and  Cooperation 

uolhiuix  lliat  tlic  mnjorily  of  the  people  do  not 
want  tluMi"  c'liildroii  to  loarii?  Shall  we  allow  a 
well  orii'aiiized  minority  to  prescribe  what  we  shall 
study  as  they  prescribe  at  what  hour  we  shall  get 
up,  aud  what  we  shall  drink?  Is  there  no  occupa- 
tion for  the  freedom  of  idle  hours,  but  to  devise 
schemes  for  forcing  more  pay  from  our  fellows, 
and  for  imposing  our  wall  upon  our  fellow^men? 

Is  the  freedom  to  wiiich  we  invite  the  oppressed 
of  the  world  a  freedom  to  confiscate  the  fruits  of 
toil,  to  put  the  ignorant  in  command,  and  to  exalt 
the  man  without  conscience  or  truth  to  the  places 
of  leadership?  Is  the  sovereignty  which  our  Re- 
publican senators  are  so  afraid  we  may  lose  the 
right  to  do  w^hat  w^e  please,  or  only  the  right  to 
do  Avhat  is  right? 

Was  not  liberty  perhaps  a  perquisite  of  a  new 
country,  where  there  w^as  room  for  a  man  like 
Patrick  Henry  to  swing  his  arms  and  declaim, 
"Give  me  liberty  or  give  me  death,"  and  have  we 
not  become  now^  too  congested  especially  in  our 
large  cities,  for  any  one  to  enjoy  much  liberty  of 
action,  without  hurting  a  neighbor?  Could  tw^o 
million  people  ride  dail}^  in  the  subways  of  New 
York  if  any  considerable  number  of  them  w^ere  de- 
votees of  personal  liberty  and  not  rather  as  meek 
and  unresisting  as  the  dumb  cattle  w4iich  night 
after  night  fall  into  their  places  at  milking  time? 

What  about  this  Democracy  of  w^hich  w^e  have 
heard  so  much  of  late,  and  of  w^hich  Lecky  said 
prophetically  twenty-five  years  ago — "I  do  not 
think  that  any  one  w^ho  seriously  considers  the 

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Liberty  and  Cooperation 

force  and  universality  of  the  movement  of  our 
generation  in  the  direction  of  democracy  can  doubt 
that  this  conception  of  government  will  neces- 
sarily, at  least  for  a  considerable  time,  dominate 
in  all  civilized  countries,  and  the  real  question  for 
politicians  is  the  form  it  is  likely  to  take,  and  the 
means  by  which  its  characteristic  evils  can  be  best 
mitigated.  As  we  have,  I  think,  abundantly  seen, 
a  tendency  to  democracy  does  not  mean  a  tendency 
to  parliamentary  government,  or  even  a  tendency 
towards  greater  liberty.  On  the  contrary,  strong 
arguments  may  be  adduced,  both  from  history,  and 
from  the  nature  of  things,  to  show  that  democ- 
racy may  often  prove  the  direct  opposite  of  liberty. 
Equality  is  the  idol  of  democracy,  but  with  the  in- 
finitely various  capacities  and  energies  of  men, 
this  can  only  be  attained  by  a  constant,  systematic 
stringent  repression  of  their  natural  development. 
Whenever  natural  forces  have  unrestricted  play, 
inequality  is  certain  to  ensue.  Democracy  de- 
stroys the  balance  of  opinions,  interests,  and 
classes,  on  which  constitutional  liberty  mainly 
depends,  and  its  constant  tendency  is  to  impair 
the  efficiency  and  authority  of  parliaments,  which 
have  hitherto  proved  the  chief  organs  of  political 
liberty.  In  our  own  day,  no  fact  is  more  incon- 
testable and  conspicuous  than  the  love  of  democ- 
racy for  authoritative  regulation. 

' '  The  industrial  organization  to  which  the  trade- 
unions  aspire  approaches  far  more  nearly  to  that 
of  the  Middle  Ages  or  of  the  Tudors  than  to  the 
ideals  of  Jeiferson  and  Cobden.     I  do  not  here 

69 


Liberty  and  Cooperation 

argiio  whether  this  tendency  is  good  or  bad.  No 
one  at  least  can  suppose  that  it  is  in  the  direction 
of  freedom.  It  may  be  permitted  to  doubt 
whether  Uberty  in  other  forms  is  likely  to  be  very 
secure  if  i)()\ver  is  mainly  placed  in  the  hands  of 
men,  who,  in  their  owi\  sphere,  value  it  so  little." 

The  time  is  too  short  for  me  to  attempt  any 
very  complete  answer  to  the  questions  I  have 
raised.  I  shall  be  content  if  I  have  provoked  ques- 
tions in  some  of  you,  and  have  sent  you  to  the 
library  for  Lecky  or  John  Stuart  Mill  or  Lowes 
Dickinson.  Even  Euclid,  however,  sometimes 
offers  hints  as  to  the  direction  in  which  a  solution 
may  be  found,  and  with  a  similar  purpose  in  \dew 
I  want  to  call  your  attention  to  three  or  four 
truths  which  seem  to  me  to  help  toward  a  solution 
of  the  conflicting-  claims  of  the  ideals  of  liberty 
and  of  fraternity  or  cooperation. 

The  first  is  that  we  mislead  ourselves  when  we 
talk  of  Liberty  with  a  capital  L,  instead  of  liber- 
ties. There  is  no  such  thing  as  Liberty  in  the  ab- 
stract. Even  Patrick  Henry  when  he  said,  Give 
me  Liberty  or  give  me  Death,  did  not  mean  Liberty 
in  general,  but  the  liberty  then  in  question,  free- 
dom from  English  rule.  No  man  has  ever  attained 
complete  freedom,  complete  independence.  We 
have  won,  humanity  has  won  by  its  struggles 
through  the  ages  certain  liberties,  freedom  from 
slavery,  freedom  to  sell  his  services  in  an  open 
market,  freedom  to  w^orship  and  to  think  in  re- 
ligious matters  as  his  conscience  dictates,  freedom 
of  opinion,  freedom  to  learn  and  to  know.     Some 

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Liberty  and  Cooperation 

of  these  liberties  are  held  precariously,  some  are 
more  in  peril  to-day  than  others.  Not  all  the 
world  would  join  even  with  Burns  in  his  defense 
of  that  fundamental  liberty : 

"Here's  freedom  to  him  that  wad  read, 
Here's  freedom  to  him  that  wad  write, 
There 's  nane  ever  feared  that  the  truth  should  be  heard 
But  them  whom  the  truth  wad  indite." 

While  we  have  seen  this  summer  even  in  enlight- 
ened America  that  when  men's  passions  are  roused 
their  faith  wanes  in  that  creed  so  well  stated  by 
Mazzini :  ' '  God  has  given  you  thought ;  no  one 
has  the  right  to  restrain  it,  or  to  forbid  the  ex- 
pression of  it,  which  is  the  communion  of  your 
soul  with  the  soul  of  your  brothers  and  the  only 
way  of  progress  which  we  have.  The  press  must 
be  absolutely  free;  the  rights  of  the  intellect  are 
inviolable  and  any  preventive  censorship  is 
tyranny. 

"Peaceful  association  is  sacred  like  thought. 
God  planted  the  tendency  in  you  as  a  perennial 
means  of  progress,  a  pledge  of  that  unity  which 
the  human  family  is  destined  one  day  to  attain; 
no  power  has  any  right  to  impede  or  limit  it." 

When  we  shut  a  man  up  in  prison  we  say  we 
have  deprived  him  of  his  liberty,  but  Bunyan  los- 
ing the  liberty  to  walk  in  England  and  to  dispose 
of  his  physical  person,  discovered  thereby  the 
liberty  to  write  and  to  walk  the  road  to  immortal 
fame. 

It  will  help  us  then  in  our  efforts  to  think  out 


Liberty  and  Cooperation 

the  proper  relations  of  liberty  and  cooperation, 
if  we  talk  of  liberties  rather  than  of  liberty  in  the 
abstract.  The  trades  unionist  feels  that  he  is  in- 
creasint*:  the  liberties  of  men  by  lighting  to  wrest 
the  control  of  industry  from  capital  and  captains 
of  industry  and  place  it  in  the  hands  of  the  leaders 
of  the  majority  of  those  participating  in  that  par- 
ticular industry;  that  thus  the  individual  work- 
man ^yiU.  have  the  greatest  freedom  in  determining 
the  circumstances  of  his  labor.  The  owner  of 
property,  on  the  other  hand,  feels  that  if  he  loses 
the  right  of  peaceful  possession  and  control  of 
property,  freedom  no  longer  exists  and  he  has  lost 
one  of  the  most  cherished  of  his  liberties,  a  liberty 
for  which  the  Anglo-Saxon  has  fought  long  and 
bitterly. 

Xot  all  liberties  are  equally  desirable,  and  some 
smaller  liberties  must  be  sacrificed  to  greater  free- 
doms. When  we  argue  for  liberty,  therefore,  let 
us  be  careful  to  define  the  liberty  we  have  in  mind. 
The  idea  of  liberty  and  its  applications  will  grow 
from  generation  to  generation  and  develop  accord- 
ing to  changed  conditions.  In  general,  however, 
we  may  say  with  Dickinson,  ''The  liberty  that  is 
desirable  is  that  of  good  people  pursuing  Good  in 
order — and  the  order  that  is  desirable  is  that  of 
good  people  pursuing  Good  in  liberty,"  or  with 
Mazzini,  ''Your  liberty  will  be  sacred  so  long  as 
it  develops  under  the  ruling  influence  of  the  idea 
of  Duty  and  of  faith  in  the  common  perfectibility. 
Your  liberty  will  flourish  protected  by  God  and  by 
men,  so  long  as  you  regard  it  not  as  the  right  to 

72 


Liberty  and  Cooperation 

use  and  to  abuse  your  faculties  in  any  direction 
which  it  pleases  you  to  choose,  but  as  the  right 
to  choose  freely  and  according  to  your  special 
tendencies  a  means  of  doing  good." 

If  the  first  principle  is  to  distinguish  liberties, 
the  second  principle  is  that  liberty,  like  life  itself, 
must  die  in  order  to  live.  In  the  field  of  liberty 
as  elsewhere  we  run  up  against  that  paradox  of 
biology  that  living  is  dying.  If  we  seal  up  the 
body  hermetically  so  that  there  will  be  no  decay, 
there  will  also  be  no  life.  If  we  decline  to  use  our 
liberty  for  fear  we  may  thereby  incur  obligation 
and  become  less  free,  our  liberty  is  only  potential, 
not  actual.  It  becomes  like  the  money  of  the  miser 
— useless. 

Liberty  is  the  power  to  say  yes  or  no,  to  turn 
to  the  right  or  left,  but  it  is  not  the  power  to  turn 
right  and  left  at  the  same  time,  nor  the  power  to 
enjoy  the  consequence  of  turning  left  if  you  have 
actually  turned  right.  Liberty  after  it  has  been 
used  is  about  as  significant  as  gunpowder  after  it 
has  been  exploded,  or  the  stick  of  a  rocket  after 
the  flight.  Like  money,  therefore,  liberty  may  be 
overrated.  Unlike  money,  the  more  one  spends, 
the  more  rapidly  is  one's  store  replenished. 

You  have  come  to  college  to  be  free,  at  least 
I  hope  you  have.  You  have  come  to  rid  yourselves 
of  all  that  fetters  your  freedom,  bodily  weakness, 
intellectual  sloth,  ignorance,  mental  blindness,  de- 
pendence upon  the  eyes  and  brains  of  others.  If, 
however,  you  are  so  greedy  of  your  new-found 
freedom,  that  you  hesitate  to  do  anything  for  fear 

73 


Liberty  and  Cooperation 

you  may  commit  yourself  and  ilioreby  shackle 
your  freedom — if  your  attitude  of  mind  is  that  of 
the  little  girl  portrayed  in  a  recent  novel,  who  was 
called  ''Sliant"  because  her  favorite  response  was 
"Shant  if  I  don't  want  to,"  you  have  made  the 
great  mistake  of  confounding  means  and  end,  the 
tool  and  the  job,  the  uniform  and  the  cause. 

"When  freedom  meets  cooperation,  therefore,  it 
is  true  that  if  it  cooperates  some  liberties  are  de- 
stroyed, but  it  is  also  true  that  if  it  refuses  to  ex- 
ercise its  freedom  to  cooperate  it  has  thereby  ar- 
bitrarily restricted  its  field  of  action. 

Third — Cooperation  is  a  worthy  ideal.  Love  of 
f ellowmen,  willingness  to  work  with  and  for  fellow- 
men,  readiness  to  subordinate  personal  advantage 
to  the  public  welfare,  the  spirit  of  the  fraternity, 
the  clan,  the  trades-union,  the  nation,  the  league, 
these  are  great  ideals.  Cooperation  is,  however, 
in  our  day  perhaps  likely  to  be  overestimated 
rather  than  underestimated.  The  town  meeting 
was  never  a  very  efficient  form  of  government. 
Democracy,  we  think,  is  worth  what  it  costs,  but  it 
is  a  terribly  expensive  method  of  educating  men  in 
freedom.  If  the  voice  of  the  people  is  the  voice 
of  God,  it  also  is  true  that  mobs  are  notoriously 
fickle  and  foolish. 

The  devotee  of  cooperation  some  times  forgets 
that  the  greatest  apostle  of  Democracy,  Jesus 
Christ  himself,  or  Thomas  Jefferson  were  great 
individualists.  Jesus  allowed  no  friend,  not  his 
own  disciples,  neither  the  secular  nor  religious  au- 
thorities of  his  time,  to  swerve  him  from  the  task 

74 


Liberty  and  Cooperation 

he  had  set  himself,  to  hurry  him  toward  it,  or  to 
hinder  him  from  accomplishing  it. 

Thomas  Jefferson,  the  great  apostle  of  the 
rights  of  man,  built  his  house  on  a  hill  top  for 
solitude,  and  arranged  underground  corridors  so 
that  his  thoughts  should  not  be  disturbed  by  the 
sight  of  his  servants  passing  to  and  fro,  while  he 
could  look  down  and  see  in  the  dim  distance  the 
university  which  his  individual  thought  and  genius 
were  shaping  in  its  minutest  detail,  taking  visible 
form. 

The  truth  of  the  matter  is  that  cooperation  is 
good  if  those  who  cooperate  are  worth  while.  If 
you  multiply  zero  by  a  thousand  or  ten  thousand 
or  a  hundred  thousand  you  make  no  advance. 
The  great  danger  in  our  colleges  and  in  our  re- 
public to-day  is  the  assumption  that  if  enough 
people  favor  a  thing  it  must  be  right  or  worth- 
while ;  that  if  enough  people  get  together  you  have 
an  army  or  a  political  party,  irrespective  of  the 
ability  or  genius  which  the  group  includes;  that  a 
great  leader  in  a  democracy  need  not  be  a  great 
individual,  or  a  willful  man,  had  indeed  best  not 
have  any  private  convictions  or  opinions,  but 
strive  only  with  ear  to  the  ground  to  hear  the 
popular  voice,  and  in  action  to  register  the  popu- 
lar will. 

It  was  no  mere  chance  that  of  the  men  we  hon- 
ored with  honorary  degrees  at  our  last  commence- 
ment three  of  the  eight  had  not  attended  college, 
and  I  regard  it  as  the  strongest  argument  against 
college  education  to-day,  that  the  spirit  of  cooper- 

75 


Liberty  and  Cooperation 

at  ion  is  so  ritV,  that  tliore  is  little  encouragement 
to  a  man  to  think  for  himself,  or  to  stand  heroi- 
cally for  his  own  convictions.  Democracy  does 
not  know  what  is  good  for  it  and  never  has.  More 
than  any  form  of  government  it  requires  great 
individuals,  strong  and  gifted  leaders,  and  yet  all 
its  efforts  are  bent  on  dcstrojdng  the  man  who  is 
different,  who  exhibits  genius  or  originality  or 
power. 

Finally,  cooperation  implies  at  least  two  inde- 
pendent parties.  If  we  believe  in  cooperation  we 
must  desire  that  capital  and  labor  shall  be  fairly 
evenly  matched.  If  capital  is  too  strong,  or  if 
labor  is  too  strong,  there  will  not  be  cooperation. 
A  servant  may  give  a  master  loyal  service,  but  he 
can  hardly  be  said  to  cooperate. 

If  men  are  forced  by  intimidation  or  armed 
troops  to  join  a  labor-union  it  ceases  to  be  a  co- 
operative society  and  becomes  a  despotism.  Co- 
operation presupposes  freedom  and  is  possible 
only  for  free  men.  This  is  the  cardinal  principle 
which  must  be  borne  in  mind  by  all  voluntary 
organizations,  whether  it  be  church,  or  trades- 
union  or  societies  of  scholars.  When  the  tyranny 
of  an  organization  proceeds  so  far  as  to  destroy 
the  characteristic  type  of  which  it  was  formed, 
when  its  constituent  members  are  no  longer  free 
and  equal,  but  cowed  by  force  or  blinded  and  be- 
guiled by  deluding  flattery,  it  has  ceased  to  be  a 
cooperating  society  and  has  become  a  dominion. 
You  must  be  on  your  watch  against  this  tendency 
of  cooperation,  to  destroy  the  thing  it  loves,  to 

76 


Liberty  and  Cooperation 

kill  that  liberty  which  alone  makes  cooperation 
possible. 

If  then  liberty  finds  expression  in  cooperation, 
and  if  cooperation  and  fraternization  are  only  pos- 
sible between  men  who  enjoy  liberty,  we  see  that 
the  two  ideals  are  not,  as  appears  at  first  sight, 
contradictory  alternatives,  but  rather  supplemen- 
tary the  one  to  the  other,  and  that  they  only  come 
in  conflict  when  pressed  too  far. 

The  two  have,  however,  a  common  enemy  which 
often  wears  the  cloak  of  one  or  the  other.  The 
common  enemy  is  the  lust  of  power.  The  fight 
to-da}^  between  trades-unions  and  capital  is  not 
a  fight  for  higher  wages  or  more  things  to  eat 
or  to  wear  or  to  own.  It  is  a  fight  for  power. 
Against  the  lust  for  power  the  spirit  of  liberty 
and  the  spirit  of  cooperation,  the  individualist, 
and  the  socialist  can  join  hands  in  a  common 
cause. 

The  good  man  is  as  thirsty  for  power  as  the 
bad  man.  The  prohibitionist  exults  in  the  polit- 
ical power  he  wields  for  good,  quite  as  much  as 
the  liquor  seller  in  the  political  power  he  wields 
for  evil.  The  greatest  crimes  against  freedom 
and  brotherliness  have  been  committed  in  the 
name  of  religion  just  as  we  are  to-day  mtnessing 
liberty  destroyed  in  the  name  of  patriotic  democ- 
racy. 

The  necessities  of  war  remove  the  sentinels  of 
liberty  and  power  is  enthroned.  Men  cooperate  in 
a  just  cause,  and  demagogues  thirsty  for  power, 
seeing  how  easy  it  is  to  set  a  hundred  millions 

77 


Liberty  and  Cooperation 

siiigins:  Olio  liiiio,  try  to  continue  the  experiment 
^vlle^  tlio  necessity  has  passed. 

Democracy  pressed  too  far  is  to-day  in  danger 
of  hiiidiiig  us  in  the  condition  so  well  pictured  by 
Shakespeare  in  Troilus  and  Cressida; 

"Force  should  be  right,  or  rather  right  and  wrong 

Should  lose  their  names,  and  so  should  justice  too. 

Between  whose  endless  jar  justice  resides 

Then  everything  includes  itself  in  power 

Power  into  will,  will  into  appetite; 

And  appetite,  an  universal  wolf, 

So  doubly  seconded  Avith  will  and  power. 

Must  make  perforce  an  universal  prey, 

And  last  eat  up  himself." 

In  our  owtl  day,  when  we  control  the  services 
of  others  by  wages  rather  than  by  force  of  arms, 
this  lust  for  power  takes  chiefly  the  form  of  lust 
for  wealth  or  the  ability  to  get  or  to  give  greater 
wages.  Political  power  is  sought  not  so  much  for 
its  own  sake  as  because  it  can  be  used  to  determine 
tariffs  or  wage  conditions  or  railroad  rates.  It 
is  a  lust  which  has  leaped  all  bounds  and  run  mad 
since  the  war  ended.  It  is  important  for  us  as 
students  to  recognize  it  as  the  enemy  of  both  those 
who  believe  in  individual  freedom  and  those  who 
believe  in  cooperative  enterprise,  and  to  point  it 
out  to  all  as  such,  just  as  the  students  of  China 
have  been  the  ones  to  interpret  to  the  Chinese 
people  the  true  significance  of  such  questions  as 
that  of  Shantung. 

If  we  identify  this  lust  as  the  enemy  of  both 

78 


Liberty  and  Cooperation 

freedom  and  cooperation,  perhaps  even  we  our- 
selves after  a  little  reflection  may  decide  in  the 
words  of  Stevenson,  to  ''spend  a  trifle  less  of  this 
thing  we  call  life  for  money,  and  indulge  our- 
selves a  trifle  more  in  the  article  of  freedom." 
We  may  indeed  even  reach  that  state  of  mind 
which  characterized  Thoreau  as  a  youth  when  he 
said,  ''To  have  done  anything  by  which  you 
earned  money  merely  is  to  be  idle  and  worse." 

Certainly  we  will  be  on  the  watch  in  our  own 
souls  against  any  loss  of  respect  for  our  fellow- 
men,  any  disposition  to  subordinate  them  to  our 
own  ends,  or  to  utilize  them  for  our  own  enjoyment 
to  their  detriment,  for  from  this  spirit  in  the  indi- 
vidual springs  the  lust  for  power  and  tyranny 
which  threatens  the  existence  of  every  state  in 
which  freedom  and  fraternity  have  planned  to  live. 

And  as  we  look  out  from  this  peaceful  hill  upon 
the  boiling  cauldron  of  a  world  in  economic  revo- 
lution, we  shall  go  one  step  further  than  the  most 
enlightened  trades-unionists  have  gone,  and  be 
prepared  to  say,  "Not  only  is  it  not  enough  that 
wages  be  reckoned  in  money,  they  must  be  reck- 
oned in  goods  if  we  are  really  to  be  better  off  than 
our  fathers,"  but  also  "not  only  is  it  not  enough 
that  we  receive  due  wages  in  material  goods,  we 
must  be  careful  that  we  do  not  dispose  of  our 
share  of  that  life  which  on  the  highest  authority 
we  know,  neither  springs  from  nor  can  be  meas- 
ured by  the  amount  of  things  which  a  man  pos- 
sesseth." 

79 


Liberty  and  Cooperation 

To  ail)'  ^vllo  are  seeking  the  key  to  a  successful  ■ 
life  in  the  present  world  welter,  I  commend  the 
words  written  by  Huxley  to  his  son  on  his  18th 
birtliday,  "The  c^reat  thing  in  the  world  is  not  so 
much  to  seek  happiness,  as  to  earn  peace  and  self- 
respect.  I  have  not  troubled  you  much  mth  pa- 
ternal didactics,  but  that  bit  is  'ower  true'  and 
worth  thinking  over" — or  even  better,  the  words 
of  the  greatest  teacher  of  all,  ''Seek  first  the  King- 
dom of  God,  and  all  these  things  shall  be  added 
unto  you,"  for  we  know  that  where  the  Spirit  of 
the  Lord  is,  there  is  liberty,  and  that  the  first  law 
of  his  Kingdom  is  to  cooperate  in  love. 


80 


ARMS  AND  ARCHIMEDES 

A  WELL  known  college  president  wrote  a  book 
a  few  years  ago  on  "The  American  College, 
What  It  Is,  and  What  It  May  Become."  It  never 
occurred  to  him,  however,  to  say  that  it  might  be- 
come a  miUtary  camp.  It  must  have  been  some 
strange  prophetic  instinct  which  led  those  early 
Eastonians,  founders  of  a  college,  to  which  they 
were  giving  the  name  of  a  Frenchman,  to  write 
into  one  clause  of  the  charter,  instruction  shall  be 
given  in  military  science  and  in  the  German  lan- 
guage. We  hope  that  the  military  instruction  you 
are  to  receive  here  this  winter  will  shortly  make 
it  possible  for  you  to  put  to  good  use  any  knowl- 
edge you  may  have  of  Germany  or  of  the  language 
spoken  within  its  borders. 

The  eyes  of  the  world  are  now  upon  Metz,  the 
city  where  according  to  tradition  Lafayette  first 
heard  of  Americans  gallant  struggle  for  freedom. 
Curiously  enough  it  was  from  the  Duke  of  Glouces- 
ter, brother  of  the  British  king,  that  Lafayette 
first  heard  the  tale,  a  tale  told  too  in  ridicule. 
''When  I  first  learnt  the  subject  of  the  quarrel," 
writes  Lafayette,  ''my  heart  espoused  warmly  the 
cause  of  liberty  and  I  thought  of  nothing  but  of 
adding  also  the  aid  of  my  banner." 

Address  at  the  opening  of  Lafayette  College,  September  19, 
1918. 

8i 


Arms  and  Archimedes 

So  we,  too,  of  llic  College  of  Lafayette,  think 
to-day  of  nothing  but  of  adding  also  the  aid  of 
our  banner.  Like  Lafayette,  we  are  devotees  of 
liberty.  In  one  place  Lafayette  speaks  of  some 
schoolboy  successes,  inspired  by  the  "love  of 
glory,  and  somewhat  disturbed  by  love  of  liberty." 
In  another  place  he  says,  ''you  ask  me  at  about 
what  age  I  first  experienced  my  ardent  love  of 
liberty  and  glory.  At  eight  years  of  age  my 
heart  beat  when  I  heard  of  a  hyena  that  had  done 
some  injury  and  caused  still  more  alarm  in  our 
neighborhood,  and  the  hope  of  meeting  it,  was  the 
object  of  all  of  my  walks." 

''When  I  arrived  at  college,"  says  Lafayette, 
"nothing  ever  interrupted  my  studies  except  my 
ardent  wish  of  studying  without  restraint.  I  rec- 
ollect with  pleasure  that  when  I  was  to  describe 
in  rhetoric,  a  perfect  courser,  I  sacrificed  the  hope 
of  obtaining  a  premium,  and  described  the  perfect 
courser,  as  the  one  who  on  perceiving  the  whip, 
threw  down  his  rider." 

We  of  the  colleges,  than  whom  there  are  none 
more  ardent  lovers  of  liberty,  welcome  the 
Students'  Army  Training  Corps,  because  it  is 
based  on  the  principle  of  mutual  cooperation  be- 
tween the  school  and  the  army,  and  because  we  be- 
lieve we  shall  thus  advance  liberty  in  the  world. 
Like  the  perfect  courser  admired  of  Lafayette  it 
is  quite  conceivable  that  should  the  colleges  of 
America  perceive  the  whip,  they  too  would  throw 
down  their  rider. 

We  welcome  you  then  to  both  academic  and 

82 


Arms  and  Archimedes 

military  training.  For  the  first  time,  a  college 
president  may  properly  begin  as  Vergil  began  his 
^neid : — 

'' Arma  virumque  cano  .  .  ." 

I  speak  of  arms  and  the  man;  with  the  arms 
first,  capitalized  and  emphasized.  For  the  first 
time  the  students  of  Lafayette  are,  or  soon  will  be, 
soldiers  first  and  students  second.  Nevertheless 
truth  remains  the  same,  and  what  was  sound  mo- 
rality or  accurate  science,  or  good  psychology  yes- 
terday, is  the  same  to-day.  It  is  not  always  the 
thing  that  strikes  the  eye  first  that  is  the  most 
important.  If  you  read  on  in  Vergil  you  will  dis- 
cover, that  while  arms  stand  first,  and  have  the 
emphasis  in  the  first  line,  in  the  second  line  arms 
are  already  forgotten,  and  the  verse  goes  on  to 
talk,  not  about  arms,  nor  about  ''the  arms  which," 
but  about  ' '  the  man  who. ' ' 

So  you  will  find  it  here  at  Lafayette,  I  trust,  this 
year  also,  for  all  the  outward  military  show. 
Though  we  may  try  to  conceal  individuality  by 
uniform,  though  you  will  no  longer  be  able  to  rec- 
ognize a  freshman  by  his  cap,  though  all  classes 
will  wear  the  same  olive  drab  hat  cord,  and  the 
only  external  ditference  between  a  locomotive 
engineer  and  a  student  of  Latin  be  the  difference 
between  a  blue  hat  cord  and  an  olive  drab  one,  we 
hope  that  you  will  find  a  college  unit  different  from 
a  cantonment  in  this,  that  while  the  song  of  both 
begins  ''Arms  and  the  Man,"  the  college  unit  will 
go  on  to  the  second  line,  and  place  the  emphasis 
upon  "the  man,  who." 

8.^ 


Arms  and  Archimedes 

We  shall  continue  to  talk  here  of  men,  not  of 
man  power.  We  shall  try  to  distinguish  men  here 
according-  to  their  several  virtues  and  aptitudes. 
We  shall  seek  to  sift  men  with  more  discrimination 
than  is  possible  even  with  the  careful  personnel 
system  at  the  larL^e  camps,  and  we  shall  try  to 
adapt  means  to  ends,  with  a  little  more  differentia- 
tion than  is  jDossible  in  the  rough  and  ready,  hurly 
burly  of  shaping  three  million  men  into  an  army 
of  trained  soldiers.  You  are  to  be  congratulated, 
therefore,  on  your  status  as  prospective  members 
of  the  Students'  Army  Training  Corps,  stripped 
as  the  status  is,  of  the  freedom  and  luxuries  of 
other  years. 

I  do  not  propose  to  discuss  this  morning,  much 
as  I  am  tempted  to  do  so,  the  causes,  the  aims,  or 
the  issues  of  the  war. 

By  direction  of  the  War  Department  every 
student  will  receive  instruction  in  these  subjects  in 
a  special  course,  and  I  shall  not  attempt  to  deal 
in  twenty  minutes  with  a  subject  for  which  the 
War  Department  has  set  apart  three  hundred  and 
fifty  hours. 

My  theme  is  Vergil's  ''Arms  and  the  Man,"  and 
the  man,  if  we  must  ,give  him  a  name,  you  may 
call  Archimedes,  for  I  want  to  speak  of  a  man  in 
relation  to  the  tools  of  his  trade,  in  this  case  the 
trade  of  war,  and  therefore,  properly  called  arms. 

I  suppose  the  chief  difference  between  a  mature 
man  and  a  boy  is  that  the  mature  man  attaches 
greater  importance  to  tools  than  the  boy  does.  A 
woman,  they  say,  needs  only  one  tool— a  hairpin. 

84 


Arms  and  Archimedes 

A  boy  of  resolution  and  spirit  feels  he  can  do  any- 
thing with  no  tool  but  himself.  I  notice  the  aver- 
age college  boy  scorns  even  to  equip  himself  with 
a  note  book  and  a  pencil,  believing  in  character- 
istic American  fashion,  that  the  less  equipment 
he  provides,  the  more  chance  he  has  to  exercise 
his  wits.  I  have  even  known  college  boys  who  put 
off,  perhaps  to  the  day  before  examination,  the 
purchase  of  a  text  book,  scorning  ulterior  aids  in 
the  pursuit  of  knowledge.  I  have  noticed  even  in 
athletics  that  very  few  boys  will  equip  themselves 
with  the  paraphernalia  of  athletics  if  left  to  them- 
selves. They  would  rather  risk  a  broken  nose 
than  buy  a  nose  guard,  rather  risk  a  split  hand 
than  bother  with  a  catcher's  glove,  run  in  shoes 
too  large  or  too  small,  than  take  the  trouble  to 
be  accurately  fitted. 

Age  on  the  contrary  comes  to  love  good  tools. 
The  barber  has  his  pet  razor,  and  takes  infinite 
pains  to  keep  it  sharp ;  the  carpenter  has  his  own 
special  saw,  or  some  extra  tempered  chisel,  the 
dentist  is  as  fond  of  some  pet  instrument  of  tor- 
ture as  a  mother  of  her  first  child.  The  chauffeur 
suffers  personal  agonies  if  his  motor  groans,  the 
bank  clerk  has  his  pet  pen,  the  draftsman  prides 
himself  on  his  pencil  points,  and  even  the  hobo  is 
likely  to  have  some  treasured  stick  which  helps 
him  carry  his  pack,  ward  off  stray  dogs,  and 
steadies  him  when  weary. 

The  more  civilized  we  become,  the  more  depen- 
dent we  grow  on  the  various  instrumentalities  of 
our  life.     When  we  revert  to  some  primeval  state 

85 


Arms  and  Archimedes 

like  ■warfare,  therefore,  we  discover  \vith  surprise 
two  thiii,i::8.  AVe  find  first,  that  after  all,  it  is  the 
man  behind  the  tool  that  counts,  and  second,  and 
this  we  learn  almost  as  soon,  we  find  that  that 
man  counts  for  the  most  who  can  best  fashion  for 
himself  tools  adapted  to  his  new  job. 

The  old  man  is  likely  to  depend  too  much  on 
tools,  the  young  man  is  likely  to  attach  too  little 
importance  to  tools.  Sometimes  a  young  David 
with  a  simple  tool  like  a  sling,  is  more  efficient  than 
an  old  man  with  orthodox  armor  and  sword,  but 
generally  speaking  the  principle  holds,  youth  un- 
dervalues tools,  age  overvalues  them. 

The  War  Department  sets  down  as  one  of  the 
chief  aims  of  its  military  instruction,  confidence  in 
the  power  of  the  rifle.  I  don 't  know  just  wiiy  they 
select  the  rifle,  instead  of  the  machine  gun,  or  the 
gas  bomb,  or  the  hand  grenade,  but  it  is  doubtless 
because  it  was  the  only  tool  of  the  old  men  who 
wrote  the  regulations,  and  like  age  in  general, 
they  had  undue  confidence  in  the  tool  they  were 
most  used  to. 

Our  task  here  at  this  college,  as  teachers,  is  to 
make  youth  feel  the  importance  of,  and  have  con- 
fidence in,  a  much  wider  range  of  equipment. 

We  have  had  to  teach  this  first  to  Washington, 
to  convince  the  authorities  that  in  this  war,  they 
are  indeed  fighting  not  an  army,  but  the  accumu- 
lated science  of  Germany's  forty  years. 

To  teach  that  if  as  old  men  they  rely  on  the  tools 
of  their  youth,  they  are  lost,  or  if  as  a  young  na- 

86 


Arms  and  Archimedes 

tion,  they  rely  on  their  virile  manhood  alone,  they 
are  lost. 

Far  fetched  and  intricate  as  it  may  appear,  dubi- 
ous as  some  may  think  the  experiment,  Washing- 
ton has  finally  been  convinced  that  colleges  and 
universities  are  an  essential  industry  even  in  war- 
time, and  can  give  the  nation  arms,  which  they  will 
not  get  elsewhere,  and  which  are  essential  to  the 
winning  of  the  war.  Some  one  told  me  recently 
that  it  had  all  been  worked  out  scientifically  just 
how  many  men  a  ton  of  steel  spares  the  United 
States.  We  know  that  if  the  workmen  strike  and 
diminish  the  supply  of  steel,  America  must  re- 
place the  steel  with  the  bodies  of  so  many  of  the 
flower  of  her  manhood.  War  is  not  only  arms 
and  the  man.  In  these  days  it  is  arms  or  men,  and 
it  is  our  business  to  teach  you  young  men  the  im- 
portance of  adequate  equipment  not  only  for  your 
own  sakes,  and  for  the  sake  of  the  work  you  have 
to  do  in  the  world,  but  also  for  the  sake  of  the 
other  men,  who  will  have  the  necessary  tools  ac- 
cording as  your  administration  and  leadership  as 
officers,  are  adequate  or  inadequate.  If  there  are 
any  among  you  who  can  see  how  a  blacksmith 
forging  a  bayonet  is  getting  ready  to  fight,  how 
a  soldier  learning  to  operate  or  repair  an  auto- 
mobile is  learning  something  that  will  help  in  the 
war,  but  who  cannot  see  what  the  study  of  math- 
ematics, or  Latin,  or  war  aims,  has  to  do  with  the 
struggle  in  Europe,  he  had  better  apply  at  once 
for  a  place  in  the  vocational  section,  or  in  the  can- 

87 


Arms  and  Archimedes 

toiimout  rather  than  in  the  college  section  of  the 
S.  A.  T.  C. 

If  there  is  any  one  who  thinks  the  things  of  the 
spirit  are  of  no  consequence  comi)ared  with  the 
things  3^011  can  touch,  and  that  can  touch  you,  that 
the  old  adage  that  *'  he  who  ruleth  his  spirit  is 
greater  than  he  that  taketh  a  city"  applies  only  in 
peace  times,  he  needs  a  little  special  tutoring  in 
some  algebraic  equations. 

Arms  plus  man  equals  victory.  Arms  -f  man 
=  victory.  Arms  minus  man,  or  turn  it  around, 
minus  man  in  parenthesis  plus  arms  equals  de- 
ficiency and  defeat.  Arms  —  man  ==  deficiency 
and  defeat.  ( — man) -f  an^s  =  deficiency  and 
defeat.  If  we  could  only  rid  ourselves  of  the 
''minus  man"  we  should  save  hundreds  of  thou- 
sands of  lives. 

We  hear  a  good  deal  of  talk  about  the  War  De- 
partment having  taken  the  colleges.  Down  in 
Washington  you  will  hear  a  good  deal  of  talk 
about  the  colleges  having  taken  possession  of  the 
War  Department.  Neither  is  true.  The  watch- 
word of  the  hour  is  cooperation.  We  have  dis- 
carded the  minus  sign  for  the  period  of  the  war. 
It  is  War  Department  plus  colleges.  It  is  men 
and  arms.  It  is  brains  and  ammunition  and  self- 
control.  It  is  science  and  industry,  capital  plus 
labor,  scholarship  and  morale  that  will  win  this 
w^ar. 

We  look  to  you  young  men  to  help  make  this 
combination  soldier-student.  The  first  rule  of  suc- 
cess is  to  be  proud  of  your  own  particular  job. 

88 


Arms  and  Archimedes 

There  is  more  truth  than  poetry  in  Pinafore's 
"He  polished  up  the  handle  so  carefully  that  now 
he  is  the  ruler  of  the  Queen's  Navy,"  so  long  as 
he  had  no  choice  but  to  polish  the  handle.  Yet 
there  never  was  a  time  in  America  when  so  many 
men  were  trying  to  do  anything  except  the  thing 
they  were  trained  to  do,  as  now.  If  a  man  sticks 
at  his  regular  job,  no  matter  how  essential,  he  feels 
rather  a  slacker.  If  he  rushes  off  and  gets  the 
Government  to  put  him  at  something  else  no  mat- 
ter how  poorly  he  does  it,  he  feels  a  patriot. 

If  you  think  that  study  is  a  bore  and  all  the  time 
you  are  at  college,  go  about  your  tasks  grudgingly, 
wishing  you  were  at  an  officers'  training  camp, 
and  enduring  the  S.  A.  T.  C.  only  because  it  leads 
in  that  direction,  you  will  lose  half  of  what  the  col- 
lege has  to  give  you.  If  on  the  other  hand  you 
realize  that  the  chief  equipment  of  the  modern 
officer  is  not  his  sword,  but  certain  mental  quali- 
ties, that  he  fights  with  his  mind,  and  his  soul,  more 
than  with  his  arm,  or  his  revolver,  that  knowledge, 
accurate  observation,  power  of  concentrated 
thought,  are  not  qualities  picked  up  over  night, 
you  will  value  more  nearly  at  its  true  worth  the 
contribution  which  the  college  has  to  make  toward 
your  equipment  even  in  war  time. 

Because  analogies  drawn  from  German  science 
are  properly  odious  at  this  time,  I  like  to  refer  any 
old  cynic  or  young  skeptic  who  has  doubts  about 
the  importance  of  colleges  and  of  college  trained 
men,  in  the  mnning  of  the  war,  to  the  old  story 
of  Archimedes.    Archimedes  probably  means,  to 

89 


Arms  and  Archimedes 

most  of  yoii,  the  old  fool  of  a  scholar  who  was 
so  wrapped  up  in  drawing  geometrical  figures  in 
the  sand,  that  he  was  slain  by  a  soldier  for  fail- 
ing to  answer  a  question.  But  that  is  by  no  means 
the  whole  story  as  it  is  given  to  us  by  Plutarch  in 
his  life  of  Marcellus.  Marcellus  by  the  way  means 
martial,  and  he  was  one  of  the  three  men  in  Ro- 
man history  entitled  to  offer  spoils  of  war  person- 
ally in  his  triumph  to  Jupiter  Feretrius,  because 
he,  the  commander-in-chief,  had  won  them  in  per- 
sonal combat  with  the  opposing  commander.  He 
may  be  taken  therefore,  very  well,  in  view  of  his 
name  and  his  record,  to  stand  for  the  martial 
spirit,  for  personal  prowess  in  war  in  its  elemental 
directness. 

Archimedes,  on  the  other  hand,  w^as  by  pref- 
erence a  scholar,  a  mathematician,  a  theorist. 
''Give  me,"  he  said,  ''only  another  world  as  a  ful- 
crum for  my  lever,  and  I  will  move  this  sphere," 
and  though  the  theoretical  scholar  was  the  victor 
over  the  martial  Marcellus,  he  asked  that  w^hen 
he  died,  on  his  tomb  should  be  placed  a  cylinder 
enclosing  a  sphere  because  he  regarded  the  demon- 
stration of  the  mathematical  relations  of  the  con- 
taining solid  to  the  contained,  a  greater  triumph 
than  those  he  won  for  his  native  city  in  war. 

The  story  as  told  by  Plutarch  relates  how  Syra- 
cuse was  lucky  in  having  a  king,  Hiero  by  name, 
w^ho  had  sense  enough  to  use  his  men  of  science  to 
help  him  prepare  for  war,  and  when  Archimedes 
had  given  him  a  practical  demonstration  of  the 
power  of  the  pulley  he  had  at  once  said, ' '  Use  your 

90 


Arms  and  Archimedes 

scientific  principles  to  make  me  offensive  and  de- 
fensive engines  of  war. ' '  So  that  when  war  in  the 
person  of  Marcellus  marches  np  against  Syracuse 
and  against  science  in  the  person  of  Archimedes, 
Archimedes  is  ready  for  him,  and  as  the  original 
Greek  reads,  '^ Archimedes'  apparatus  stood  the 
Syracusans  in  good  stead ;  and  with  the  apparatus 
its  fabricator — and  along  with  the  contrivance  the 
demiurge" — another  case  of  arms  and  the  man. 

As  we  are  interested  in  war  news  just  now,  per- 
haps, you  will  bear  with  me,  while  I  read  part 
of  the  account  of  that  famous  battle  of  the  third 
century  B.  C. 

"When,  therefore,  the  Romans  assaulted  them 
by  sea  and  land,  the  Syracusans  were  stricken 
dumb  with  terror ;  they  thought  that  nothing  could 
withstand  so  furious  an  onset  by  such  forces. 
But  Archimedes  began  to  ply  his  engines,  and 
shot  against  the  land  forces  of  the  assailants  all 
sorts  of  missiles  and  immense  masses  of  stones, 
which  came  down  with  incredible  din  and  speed; 
nothing  whatever  could  w^ard  off  their  weight,  but 
they  knocked  do^vn  in  heaps  those  who  stood  in 
their  way,  and  threw  their  ranks  into  confusion. 
At  the  same  time  huge  beams  were  suddenly  pro- 
jected over  the  ships  from  the  walls,  which  sank 
some  of  them  with  great  weights  plunging  down 
from  on  high,  others  were  seized  at  the  prow  by 
iron  claws,  or  beaks  like  the  beaks  of  cranes, 
drawn  straight  up  into  the  air,  and  then  plunged 
stem  foremost  into  the  depths,  or  were  turned 
round  and  round  by  means  of  enginery  within  the 

91 


Arms  and  Archimedes 

city,  aiul  dasliod  upon  the  steep  clilTs  that  jutted 
out  beneath  the  wall  of  the  city,  with  great  destruc- 
tion of  the  fighting*  men  on  board,  who  perished  in 
the  wrecks.  Frequently,  too,  a  ship  would  be 
lifted  out  of  the  water  into  mid-air,  whirled  hither 
and  thither  as  it  hung  there,  a  dreadful  spectacle, 
until  its  crew  had  been  thrown  out  and  hurled 
in  all  direction,  when  it  would  fall  empty  upon  the 
walls,  or  slip  awa}^  from  the  clutch  that  had  held 
it. 

"However,  Marcellus  made  his  escape,  and  jest- 
ing with  his  o\vn  artificers  and  engineers,  'Let  us 
stop,'  said  he,  'fighting  against  this  geometrical 
Briareus,  who  uses  our  ships  like  cups  to  ladle 
water  from  the  sea,  and  has  w^hipped  and  driven 
off  in  disgrace  our  sambuca,  and  with  the  many 
missiles  which  he  shoots  against  us  all  at  once, 
outdoes  the  hundred-handed  monsters  of  mythol- 
ogy.' For  in  reality  all  the  rest  of  the  Syracu- 
sans  were  hut  a  body  for  the  designs  of  Archi- 
medes, and  his  the  one  soul  moving  and  manag- 
ing everything,  for  all  other  iveapons  lay  idle,  and 
his  alone  ivere  then  employed  by  the  city  both  in 
offense  and  defense.  At  last  the  Eomans  became 
so  fearful  that,  whenever  they  saw  a  bit  of  rope  or 
a  stick  of  timber  projecting  a  little  over  the  wall, 
'There  it  is,'  they  cried,  'Archimedes  is  train- 
ing some  engine  upon  us,'  and  turned  their  backs 
and  fled.  Seeing  this,  Marcellus  desisted  from  all 
fighting  and  assault,  and  thenceforth  depended  on 
a  long  siege." 

I  covet  for  the  Student  Army  Training  Corps 

92 


Arms  and  Archimedes 

the  part  of  Archimedes  in  this  war.  I  trust  the 
time  will  come  when  the  Germans,  whenever  they 
see  a  bit  of  rope,  or  a  stick  of  timber  projecting 
a  little  above  the  trenches,  will  say  ''There  it  is, 
it  is  those  American  college  men  again  at  some 
scheme  with  brains  behind  it. "  I  hope  still  more, 
that  some  American  Archimedes  will  yet  be  dis- 
covered whose  inventions  will  end  the  war  in  an 
overwhelming  victory  for  the  alhes,  but  such  an 
application  of  science  to  warfare  is  not  likely 
unless  our  King  Hiero  calls  on  Science  to  serve, 
and  gives  it  a  chance  to  work  undisturbed  in  its 
laboratories. 

I  wish  I  could  stop  here,  leaving  science  prop- 
erly triumphant,  but  if  I  did  so,  you  would  nat- 
urally ask,  why  should  it  have  happened  that 
Archimedes,  so  lofty  a  spirit,  so  profound  a  soul, 
so  wise  and  so  inventive,  should  have  been  re- 
membered chiefly  by  reason  of  the  stupidity  and 
futility  of  his  death? 

In  the  answer  to  that  question  there  is  perhaps 
another  parable  to  be  drawn  from  the  w^ar  of 
twenty  centuries  ago  for  our  war  of  to-day. 
After  some  years  of  siege,  Marcellus  noticed,  says 
Plutarch,  a  certain  tower  that  was  carelessly 
guarded  and  "seized  an  oportunity  when  the  Syra- 
cusans  were  celebrating  a  festival  and  were  given 
over  to  wine  and  sport." 

Science,  be  it  ever  so  wise,  arms,  be  they  ever 
so  clever,  are  of  no  avail  without  steadfastness 
and  fidelity  behind  them. 

We  come  back  then  to  the  theme  with  which 

93 


Arms  and  Archimedes 

wo  began,  and  the  word  which  I  would  leave  with 
you  as  a  motto  for  this  momentous  year  is  **  Arms 
and  the  IMan."  Not  the  man  alone,  brave  and 
courageous  as  he  may  be,  without  the  requisite 
material  and  mental  equipment,  not  the  arms 
alone,  automatic  and  irresistible  as  they  may  be 
guaranteed  to  be,  but  the  man  with  his  arms,  along 
with  the  contrivance — the  demiurge. 


94 


WAR  AND  EDUCATION 

FOR  the  eighty-sixth  time  professors  and 
students  gather  at  Lafayette  to  begin  a  new 
year's  work,  to  live  together  in  one  of  the  most 
felicitous  of  human  relationships,  the  relation- 
ship of  master  and  disciple,  to  enjoy  the  common 
life  of  scholars,  to  satisfy  the  insistent  inquiries 
of  the  spirit  as  to  ourselves  and  the  universe,  to 
serve  our  beloved  country  by  efficient  prepara- 
tion in  knowledge  and  technical  skill. 

We  are  in  large  part  strangers  to  each  other  to- 
day. 

The  community  of  teachers  changes  less  rap- 
idly than  the  community  of  scholars,  and  yet  if 
forty  per  cent,  of  the  students  here  to-day  are 
strangers  to  their  fellow  students,  so  too  forty 
per  cent,  of  the  faculty  have  entered  since  my 
own  very  recent  entrance  two  and  a  half  years 
ago.  We  are  none  of  us  so  old  or  so  long  estab- 
lished then,  that  we  cannot  put  ourselves  in  the 
place  of  the  new  man,  share  his  enthusiasm  and 
fresh  point  of  view,  and  yield  him  ungrudgingly 
a  place  in  the  sun  within  the  wide  walls  of  fair 
Lafayette.  Our  first  word  then  is  a  word  of 
hearty  welcome  to  the  newcomers,  both  in  faculty 
and  in  student  body.  The  freshmen  constitute 
a  larger  part  of  the  college  than  in  normal  times. 


Address  at  the  opening  of  Lafayette  College,  September,  1917. 

95 


War  and  Education 

We  owe  them  iiiucli  for  having  the  courage  and 
resolution  to  settle  down  to  routine  study  in  these 
stirring  days.  We  trust  that  they  will  not  feel 
that  the  importance  of  the  place  they  occupy 
numerically  in  the  college,  can  be  apportioned  to 
them  individually,  making  each  of  them  a  more 
important  man  than  in  ordinary  times,  but  that 
the  good  old  traditions  of  the  lowly  estate  of  the 
freshman  will  survive  even  the  perils  of  war 
time. 

Our  second  word  is  a  word  of  grateful  memory 
of  those  who  would  be  with  us  to-day,  except  for 
the  country's  necessities.  Twenty-eight  of  the 
senior  class,  28  of  the  junior  class,  46  of  the 
sophomore  class  are  knowTi  to  be  in  the  national 
service.  They  are  a  part  of  that  larger  Lafayette 
whose  walls  stretch  round  the  world,  and  are  one 
with  us  to-day  in  the  spirit  of  service  to  country 
and  to  mankind,  which  has  marked  Lafayette  men 
through  all  the  years.  We  remember  them  with 
grateful  affection,  and  wish  for  them  a  safe  re- 
turn to  the  '^ College  on  the  Hill." 

We  have  welcomed  new  classes  to  this  hill  be- 
fore, but  never  under  such  conditions  as  to-day. 
Doubtless  you  are  wondering,  as  I  wonder,  how  the 
war  will  affect  our  college  course,  what  difference 
there  is  between  the  freshman  this  year  and  last 
year,  what  ought  to  be  the  difference  in  the  col- 
lege and  in  college  men,  in  war  time  as  compared 
with  peace  time.  Does  the  price  and  value  of 
learning  rise  in  war  time  like  the  price  of  wheat 
and  coal?    If  silver  and  copper  double  in  value, 

96 


War  and  Education 

how  about  wisdom?  What  are  its  market  quota- 
tions? If  rubles  and  dollars  are  at  a  discount, 
what  about  science?  Athletics  were  at  a  pre- 
mium for  college  men  in  peace,  how  shall  we  rate 
them  then  in  war  time?  If  the  time  spent  in 
study  before  the  war  yielded  eventually  higher  re- 
turns than  the  same  time  spent  in  industry,  how 
is  it  now  that  the  price  of  manual  labor  has  risen 
fifty  per  cent.,  and  you  can  get  from  fifty  cents 
to  a  dollar  an  hour  making  munitions?  Congress 
in  its  draft  bill  has  decided  that  men  in  certain 
industries  are  as  important  to  the  country  as  men 
in  armies,  but  that  study  is  not  an  industry,  and 
if  you  are  21  your  services  are  more  valuable  to 
the  country  in  this  crisis  as  a  soldier  than  as  a 
scholar,  unless  you  are  studying  to  be  a  doctor 
or  a  clergyman.  Is  this  a  fair  rating  of  the  value 
of  technical  education  to  the  country,  even  in  this 
time  of  war?  The  United  States  is  offering  to 
pay  two  hundred  civil  engineers  eighteen  hun- 
dred dollars  a  year  a  piece  to  go  to  France, 
while  at  the  same  time  it  is  curtailing  the  supply 
of  civil  engineer  apprentices  available  in  normal 
times  at  nine  hundred  dollars  a  year.  At  one  time 
during  the  summer  Washington  announced  the 
exemption  of  technical  students,  but  the  proposed 
exemption  was  withdrawn  on  the  technicality 
that  a  man  engaged  in  study  was  not  engaged  in 
industry,  the  term  industrious  student  apparently 
having  become  obsolete. 

Wliat  would  the  Government  give  to-day  for  the 
discovery  of  a  more  certain  fuel  than  gasoline  for 

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War  and  Education 

airships,  for  the  discovery  of  a  more  efficient  gas 
that  would  destroy  life  in  acres  at  once,  for  a 
cheap  method  of  producing  potash,  or  a  fertilizer 
that  would  double  the  yield  of  wheat  to  the  acre? 
AVhat  would  they  pay  if  the  civil  engineers  in 
charge  of  the  Siberian  Railroad  could  by  the  ex- 
penditure of  money  be  made  at  once  as  efficient  as 
the  engineers  of  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad'? 
What  would  it  be  worth  to  America  if  applied 
science  had  advanced  ten  years  more  rapidly,  and 
we  were  to-day  burning  our  coal  at  the  mines  and 
transporting  the  energy  for  heat  and  fuel,  instead 
of  blocking  our  railroads  with  the  dead  weight  of 
ashes?  As  in  Solomon's  day,  so  in  this  en- 
lightened twentieth  century,  **  Wisdom  crieth 
aloud  in  the  streets,  her  price  is  above  rubies," 
even  though  she  has  no  rating  with  an  exemption 
board.  Do  not  forget  these  things  when  you  ask 
yourselves,  am  I  worth  more  to  my  country  as  a 
soldier  or  as  a  civil,  as  an  electrical,  as  a  mechan- 
ical engineer? 

In  the  minds  of  the  faculty,  as  we  greet  the 
new  men,  are  doubtless  other  questions.  What  is 
this  material  placed  in  our  hands  to-day?  We 
had  grown  used  to  thinking  of  threescore  and  ten 
as  a  normal  life,  long  enough  for  a  rich  and  varied 
experience,  long  enough  for  the  slow  unfolding 
of  a  soul,  long  enough  for  men  to  see  their  chil- 
dren and  their  grandchildren  rise  and  carry  on 
the  torch  of  learning.  Death  we  knew  was  ever 
a  possibility,  but  remote  enough  in  the  great  ma- 
joritv  of  cases  to  be  left  out  of  the  reckoning. 

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War  and  Education 

Disease,  physical  maiming,  the  loss  of  limbs  and 
disfigurement,  were  coming  to  be  negligible  fac- 
tors in  the  life  of  the  educated  man.  The  ideals  of 
our  life  were  coming  to  be  ideals  of  physical  com- 
fort, steam  heated  apartment,  paved  street  ideals. 
We  wanted  our  wool  coats  thinner,  our  dresses 
and  shoes  flimsier,  our  faces  smoother  than  did 
other  generations.  We  had  begun  to  suspect  that 
the  fruits  of  liberal  culture,  and  the  enlargement 
of  the  soul,  counted  for  little  in  the  sleek  life  of 
modern  civilization,  and  to  question  whether  there 
was  any  life  of  the  spirit  apart  from  the  life  of 
the  body.  Now  war  has  taken  us  in  its  grip,  and 
the  normal  life  of  the  youth  of  21  is  to  be  that  of 
a  soldier.  The  men  we  expected  to  graduate  last 
June  for  life,  we  have  graduated  for  war.  Their 
expectancy  of  life  in  the  life  insurance  tables  is 
only  a  quarter  of  what  we  had  come  to  expect. 
The  life  of  the  family,  the  life  of  the  home,  is  to 
be  left  out  of  the  reckoning.  How  then,  we  ask 
ourselves  as  a  faculty,  how  then  does  the  material 
placed  in  our  hands  to-day  differ  from  that  of  last 
year,  and  what  change  is  required  in  the  process 
of  molding  or  tempering  to  meet  the  changed 
conditions!  If  we  teach  these  men,  as  we  have 
taught  them,  shall  we  not  be  tempering  too  fine 
material,  which  later  the  drill  master  must  take 
and  harden  and  coarsen  for  the  cruder  handicraft 
of  war? 

Is  learning  of  any  use  to  the  soldier,  is  a  think- 
ing machine  of  any  use,  ought  he  to  be  liberally 
educated,  or  ought  we  to  do  our  best  to  make  him 

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War  and  Education 

into  a  mechanical  machine,  no  more  sentient,  no 
more  complicated  than  a  printing  press? 

War  is  not  a  new  thing  in  the  world  however 
new  it  seems  to  us.  America  which  in  peace  will 
hear  nothing  of  war,  or  preparation  for  war,  with 
the  unstable  equilibrium  of  a  democracy  is  in 
danger  in  war  time  of  being  willing  to  listen  to 
nothing  but  war,  yet  those  who  read  history  know 
that  through  long  centuries  the  arts  of  peace  and 
the  arts  of  war  traveled  side  by  side.  Sometimes 
in  the  same  man,  sometimes  in  specialists. 
Socrates  was  both  a  teacher  and  a  soldier,  but 
more  often  the  scholar  has  been  the  antithesis  of 
the  soldier.  The  troubadour  rarely  shared  the  ex- 
ploits he  celebrated.  AVe  do  not  know  much  about 
Homer,  but  we  never  confound  the  picture  of  him 
in  our  minds  w^ith  the  picture  of  Achilles  or  Hec- 
tor. Capsar  and  Cicero  are  alike  in  both  being  re- 
quired for  college  admission,  in  both  beginning 
with  *'C,"  in  both  living  at  the  same  time.  We 
think  of  Caesar,  the  warrior,  as  a  scholar  because 
of  his  Commentaries,  but  we  never  think  of  Cicero, 
the  scholar  and  statesman,  as  a  warrior,  though  he 
was  a  soldier  at  the  age  of  seventeen. 

We  urge  as  a  mitigation  of  the  aims  of  war, 
that  it  produces  letters,  that  it  advances  science, 
that  the  lost  art  of  letter  writing,  for  example,  is 
being  revived  by  Americans  in  France,  like  Vic- 
tor Chapman.  We  urge  that  the  coming  of  the 
aeroplane  as  a  commercial  conveyance  has  been 
hastened  twenty  years  by  the  war,  but  the  con- 
verse is  not  true.    We  do  not  praise  literature, 

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War  and  Education 

we  do  not  praise  science,  on  the  ground  that  they 
produce  war.  Which  then  ranks  higher  in  the 
universal  scale  of  values?  Behind  me  you  see  a 
memorial  window  to  Ario  Pardee,  and  to  Presi- 
dent Cattell,  of  whom  the  inscription  states  ''one 
gave,  the  other  built,  Pardee  Hall."  The  two 
figures  represent  Charlemagne  and  Alcuin  side  by 
side.  Charlemagne  is  the  larger  and  stronger 
figure — Alcuin  the  slighter,  more  spiritual  figure, 
and  yet  you  feel  that  Charlemagne  leans  upon 
Alcuin.  Charlemagne  w^as  the  warrior  who  added 
nation  after  nation  to  his  dominion,  and  gave  them 
the  blessings  of  firm  and  secure  government. 
Charlemagne  was  the  warrior  who  on  one  day 
caused  4,500  Saxons  to  be  decapitated  at  Ver- 
den  on  the  Aller,  having  seven  years  before  re- 
solved never  to  sheathe  the  sword  until  the 
Saxons  were  either  subdued  and  converted  to 
Christ,  or  annihilated,  and  yet  in  spite  of  this  and 
other  deeds  of  warlike  prowess,  the  biographer  of 
Charlemagne  records — ''He  was  ever  learning, 
and  fond  of  learning,  no  subject  ever  came  amiss 
to  him.  The  most  attractive  feature  of  his  char- 
acter was  his  love  of  learning.  He  delighted  in 
the  society  of  scholars,  and  in  his  life  time  men 
called  him  Charles  the  Wise,  not  Charles  the 
Great." 

We  are  in  danger  in  America,  w^here  war  is  so 
new,  of  thinking  that  the  gun  is  the  only  weapon, 
and  that  as  loyal  citizens  we  have  but  one  thing 
to  do,  and  that  is  to  equip  and  maintain  our  fight- 
ing forces  as  efficiently  as  possible,  and  leave  the 

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War  and  Education 

outcome  of  the  war  to  the  God  who  fights  with  the 
heaviest  battalions.  This  might  well  be  the  na- 
tional attitude  of  Germany,  because  the  ideals  of 
morality  and  reason  do  not  fight  for  the  German 
cause  in  this  war,  but  America  will  only  deny  her- 
self her  advantage  in  the  field  of  morality  and 
reason  if  she  fails  to  encourage  liberal  education 
or  declines  to  permit  free  discussion  and  to  use 
a  well  informed  and  rationally  persuaded  pub- 
lic opinion  as  her  most  potent  and  decisive  im- 
plement of  contest. 

Lafayette,  for  whom  this  college  was  named, 
was  remarkable  for  many  qualities  of  life  and 
temperament.  In  nothing  w^as  he  more  remark- 
able than  in  the  fact  that  a  soldier  by  profession, 
neither  in  our  Revolution,  nor  after  its  victorious 
conclusion,  did  he  come  to  think  of  war  as  an  end 
in  itself,  or  other  than  as  an  imperfect  instru- 
ment for  the  achievement  of  those  ideals  of  free- 
dom and  liberty  which  he  held  with  the  same 
simple  faith  and  fervor  in  old  age  as  in  youth,  in 
the  presence  of  King  Louis,  as  in  the  presence  of 
George  Washing-ton,  in  the  distressing  times  of  the 
French  Revolution,  and  in  the  presence  of  Na- 
poleon, as  the  prisoner  of  the  King  of  Prussia, 
or  in  an  Austrian  dungeon.  As  he  said  in  a  let- 
ter at  the  time  of  the  French  Revolution — ''At 
nineteen,  I  devoted  myself  to  the  liberty  of  man- 
kind and  the  destruction  of  despotism,  as  much 
as  a  pow^erless  individual  like  myself  could  do  so. 
I  departed  for  the  New  "World,  opposed  by  all,  and 
aided  by  none.     I  only  attached  value  to  some 

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War  and  Education 

military  talents  as  the  means  of  attaining  my 
aim,"  and,  as  he  says  elsewhere,  "he  was  as  ready 
to  aid  a  fight  for  freedom  in  Ireland  or  in  Hol- 
land, as  in  America  or  France." 

He  fulfilled,  too,  in  unusual  degree,  that  maxim 
of  Cicero — ''War  should  be  so  managed,  as  to 
remember  that  the  only  end  of  it  is  peace."  The 
unique  thing  about  the  present  war  is  not  only 
that  it  is  a  world  war,  but  that  in  a  greater  degree 
than  ever  before,  it  is  a  war  which  has  a  ten- 
dency to  absorb  the  entire  energies  of  the  na- 
tions engaged.  The  men  in  the  trenches,  the  men 
who  go  over  the  top,  the  men  who  go  under  the 
sea,  and  in  the  air  above — all  the  fighting  forces 
play  a  relatively  smaller  part  in  the  war  in  pro- 
portion to  the  total  amount  of  human  energy  in- 
volved than  ever  before.  This  is  due  partly  to 
the  fact  that  the  war  is  on  such  a  gigantic  scale, 
and  partly  to  the  fact  that  it  is  a  war  of  Applied 
Science,  and  involves  the  products  of  complicated 
industries  to  a  greater  extent  than  ever  before. 
It  is,  also,  partly  due  to  the  improved  means  of 
communication,  to  the  universal  reading  of  news- 
papers, and  the  consequent  dissemination  of  mili- 
tary news  among  all  the  people.  Another  rea- 
son perhaps  is  that  democracies  like  to  do  only 
one  thing  at  a  time.  Everybody's  doing  it,  Every- 
body join !  Shout  for  one  thing  to-day,  and  for- 
get it  to-morrow.  So  that  the  enthusiasms  of 
Wednesday  shall  never  be  revived  on  Friday,  but 
be  as  dead  on  Friday  as  a  moving  picture  reel 
shown  on  Wednesday.     This  is  one  of  the  char- 

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War  and  Education 

iicteristics  of  democracies,  which  has  its  good  and 
bad  points.  Perhaps  we  ought  not  to  take  excep- 
tion to  it  more  than  to  that  philosophy  of  life 
reflected  in  the  old  children's  song, 

This  is  the  day  we  wash  our  clothes,  wash  our  clothes, 

So  early  Monday  morning, 
This  is  the  day  we  drj-  our  clothes. 

So  early  Tuesday  morning,  etc. 

Then  the  test  of  democracy  will  be  whether  it  can 
sustain  the  same  interest  with  Wednesday  as  Red 
Cross  Day,  and  Thursday  as  Liberty  Loan  Day, 
and  Friday  as  Wheat  Day  and  Saturday  as  Coal 
Day,  as  the  weeks  roll  around,  as  the  whole  race 
has  sustained  with  Monday  as  w^ash  day,  and 
Tuesday  as  ironing  day  through  the  generations. 
In  view  of  this  absorbing  character  of  the  war, 
and  in  view  of  the  fact  that  the  Government,  in 
the  face  of  growing  military  necessity,  has  re- 
ceded from  its  plan  of  making  provision  for  a 
continued  supply  of  technical  men,  the  technical 
schools  of  the  country  have  felt  that  they  must 
do  their  part  to  avert  the  threatened  calamity, 
and  have  united  and  spent  thousands  of  dollars  in 
trying  to  impress  upon  the  country  the  necessity 
of  maintaining  the  supply  of  educated  men.  No 
one  institution  could  have  done  this  without  lay- 
ing itself  open  to  the  charge  of  seeking  its  own 
selfish  interest,  but  when  36  of  the  leading  tech- 
nical schools  of  the  country  are  willing  to  throw 
aside  all  questions  of  institutional  rivalry  or  in- 
stitutional preeminence,  and  to  join,   the   great 

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War  and  Education 

and  the  small,  alphabetically,  in  an  appeal  to  the 
country,  the  country  must  believe  that  the  doc- 
trine so  promulgated  is  based  on  sound  founda- 
tions. You  who  are  fortunate  enough  to  be  able 
to  serve  your  country  by  study  must  not  be  mis- 
led by  our  natural  interest  in  things  military 
at  this  time,  nor  feel  that  as  students  you  are  in 
a  side  eddy,  and  out  of  the  line  of  march  of  the 
nation's  progress,  serving  your  own  interest  while 
your  friends  and  class  mates  serve  the  cause  of 
freedom  and  democracy. 

To  you  who  are  not  technical  students,  but  stu- 
dents looking  forward  to  the  ministry,  or  to  teach- 
ing, or  to  literary  pursuits,  or  to  finance,  I  would 
say  a  similar  word.  We  need  religion  in  war 
time,  as  never  before,  to  make  our  thinking  in- 
telligent. ''Without  God,"  as  Mr.  Britling  says, 
''we  begin  with  no  beginning,  we  think  to  no 
end"  in  war  time.  Society  must  have  some  ex- 
planation for  the  curtailment  which  it  demands  of 
the  individual  life  for  the  benefit  of  the  race. 
Without  God  and  immortality,  and  the  ideals  of 
sacrifice  which  religion  has  instilled,  society  has 
no  rational  answer  to  the  young  man  who  asks 
"What  is  the  recompense  of  the  reward  to  him  as 
an  individual,"  if  he  lays  down  his  life  for  his 
country  at  21,  and  elects  six  months  or  a  year  of 
deadly  monotony  and  drudgery,  and  a  week  or 
two  of  glorious  fighting,  in  preference  to  the  nor- 
mal life  of  sixty  or  seventy  years  of  his  neigh- 
bor. You,  who  are  studying,  therefore,  for  the 
ministry  have  much  greater  responsibilities,  and 

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War  and  Education 

move  ill  a  much  needier  world  than  in  ordinary 
times.  When  men  are  being  slaughtered  by  mil- 
lions and  are  counted  but  cannon  fodder,  men  will 
renew  their  interest  if  you  can  tell  them  of  a  God 
without  whose  notice  "not  a  sparrow  falls  to  the 
ground"  and  who  "counts  the  very  hairs  of  their 
heads." 

To  you  who  are  to  be  teachers  and  writers,  I 
would  say  that  the  greatest  task  of  the  war  will 
be  to  keep  alive  the  ideals  of  liberty  and  democ- 
racy, in  whose  name  we  have  entered  the  conflict. 
Lord  Northcliffe  admires  America  because  there 
is  "no,  complicated  reckoning  of  compensation" 
when  the  nation  shuts  a  man's  saloon  in  war  time, 
"no  sentimental  slush  about  the  rights  of  neutral 
countries  like  Spain,  and  Sweden. ' '  But  the  dan- 
ger is  lest,  as  in  Germany,  there  will  be  no  sense  of 
justice,  of  toleration,  of  fair  dealing,  but  only  the 
law  of  military  necessity.  Some  of  those  who 
would  direct  American  thought  seem  to  feel  that 
you  cannot  fight  a  man  and  love  him  at  the  same 
time — that  no  one  can  be  a  loyal  American  who 
regards  an  enemy  as  a  fellow  man,  and  yet  this 
is  the  philosophy  which  seems  the  true  one,  un- 
less we  are  ready  to  adopt  Germany's  philosophy 
of  the  superstate,  answerable  to  no  one  but  itself. 
The  world  is  in  this  war  to-day  because  of  Ger- 
many's false  philosophy,  that  a  state  is  above  the 
laws  of  morality,  that  it  has  no  duties  to  its  fellow 
states,  because  it  learned  only  half  of  the  Apostle's 
injunction,  "Owe  no  man  anything,"  and  insisted 
that  a  sovereign  state  must  be  free  of  obligations, 

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War  and  Education 

and  shut  its  eyes  to  the  second  half  of  the  injunc- 
tion, which  applies  to  states  just  as  much  as  to 
individuals,  ''but  to  love  one  another." 

The  creed  of  democracy  is  the  creed  of  Chris- 
tianity— that  whatsoever  is  right  for  any  one  is 
right  for  every  one.  The  creed  of  the  superstate 
leads  irresistibly  to  universal  war,  when  super- 
state comes  in  conflict  with  superstate,  and  can 
only  result,  if  successful,  in  world  dominion,  a 
dream  which  has  proved  a  will-o'-the-wisp  in  the 
days  of  Alexander,  Augustus  and  Charlemagne  to 
draw  empire  after  empire  into  a  hopeless  morass. 

America  has  not  done  enough  constructive  think- 
ing the  last  three  years.  In  the  first  part  of  the 
war  it  was  urged  not  to  think  too  much  lest  it  lose 
its  neutral  mind,  and  now  it  is  urged  not  to  think 
too  much  lest  it  lose  its  martial  will.  The  country 
has  been  plunged  so  suddenly  into  a  line  of  action 
contrary  to  all  the  doctrines  in  which  it  has  been 
brought  up  that  it  is  not  strange  that  the  public 
mind  is  bewildered,  and  because  it  gives  signs 
of  groping  toward  an  intelligent  comprehension  of 
the  war,  is  accused  of  moral  and  intellectual  in- 
dolence, and  advised  that  the  best  way  to  avoid  a 
fool's  cap  in  the  school  of  events  is  to  keep  still 
or  play  the  part  of  a  parrot.  Be  loyal  to  the  truth 
as  you  see  it,  and  independent  in  your  thinking. 
Eemember  Lafayette's  doctrine  of  natural  rights, 
so  inherent  in  every  man's  existence  that  all  so- 
ciety united  has  not  the  right  of  depriving  him 
of  them — among  them  liberty  of  opinion,  the  care 
of  his  own  honor,  and  life,  the  communication  of 

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War  and  Education 

thought  in  every  possible  manner.  President  Wil- 
son in  his  reply  to  the  Pope  speaks  of  this  war  as 
the  final  winning  of  American  independence.  The 
war  may  free  America  from  the  possibility  of  for- 
eign invasion,  and  from  interference  with  its  com- 
merce on  the  seas,  but  there  is  a  battle  for  freedom 
begun  long  before  the  American  Revolution,  and 
which  mil  continue  long  after  this  w^ar,  of  which 
we  are  reminded  by  the  motto  on  our  college  seal, 
the  words  of  the  great  teacher — '*Ye  shall  know 
the  truth,  and  the  truth  shall  make  you  free." 
You,  who  are  to  be  students  of  history,  students  of 
government,  students  of  economics,  who  are  to 
learn  to  know  men  through  their  literatures,  must 
not  rate  too  low  the  importance  of  the  work  you 
have  to  do  for  your  countrj^  You  must  remind  us 
that  he  is  still  a  slave,  whose  limbs  alone  are  free. 
With  increasing  conscription  of  the  body  we  shall 
look  to  you  for  increasing  liberation  of  the  spirit. 
We  shall  look  to  you  to  Avin  for  us  the  freedom 
which  truth  gives,  and  to  remind  us  if  need  be  in 
the  words  of  that  hymn  which  college  men  sing 
with  fervor: 

Our  fathers  chained  in  prisons  dark, 
AVere  still  in  heart  and  conscience  free. 

If  you  are  tempted  to  find  your  college  course 
monotonous  before  the  end  of  the  term,  think  of 
the  awful  monotony  which  the  great  bulk  of  the 
fighting  forces  is  enduring  in  France.  Talk  mth 
your  fellows  who  are  in  the  Naval  Reserve,  and 
find  out  how  long  and  empty  their  days  are ;  think  of 

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War  and  Education 

the  thousands  of  sailors  on  battleships  waiting 
quietly  at  sea  like  a  cat  watching  a  mousehole; 
look  at  the  guardsmen  down  on  the  railroad 
bridges,  and  you  will  find  that  the  routine  of  col- 
lege life  is  relatively  exciting  compared  with  much 
of  the  life  of  the  soldier. 

If  you  are  tempted  to  rearrange  your  scale  of 
moral  values,  steady  yourself  by  resorting  to  liter- 
ature which  sets  down  the  opinion  of  nations  to 
whom  war  was  a  commonplace.  If  war  tempts 
you  to  place  a  lower  value  on  yourself  as  a  physi- 
cal animal  destined  for  early  slaughter,  stop  be- 
fore you  rate  yourself  in  terms  of  the  physical,  and 
think  how  the  reality  of  the  spiritual  side  of  man 
has  come  to  be  recognized  in  the  war,  and  how 
whole  nations  have  had  a  spiritual  rebirth,  and 
then  if  you  mind  the  things  of  the  spirit  you  will 
not  fulfill  the  deeds  of  the  flesh.  War  makes  men 
either  hogs  or  heroes,  swine  or  spirits  of  lofty  en- 
deavor. Both  sides  of  human  character  are  mag- 
nified in  war.  If  you  give  the  spiritual  side  of 
your  nature  room  for  expansion,  it  will  take  care 
of  the  domination  of  the  lower  side.  Our  life  as 
a  college  in  war  time,  and  our  life  as  individuals 
is  as  different  from  our  normal  life  as  war  bread 
is  different  from  white  bread.  They  tell  us  there 
is  more  of  vitamen,  more  of  the  principle  of  life  in 
war  bread  than  in  white  bread,  and  that  refine- 
ments of  civilization  as  we  know  them  in  peace, 
are  at  the  expense  of  the  virile  elements  which  are 
present  in  war.  Shadows,  dark  places,  sorrows, 
pains  and  sufferings  which  make  the  bread  of  war 

109 


War  and  Education 

dark  and  bitter  to  the  taste,  are,  we  are  told,  for 
our  spiritual  nourishment.  Nevertheless,  given 
the  opportunity,  the  nations  of  the  world  after 
the  war  will  doubtless  go  back  by  preference  to 
the  white  bread  of  civilization.  But  so  long  as  we 
must  for  the  present  eat  the  black  bread  of  war, 
let  us  give  it  such  mental  mastication  that  we  shall 
gain  for  ourselves  all  the  nourishment  of  soul  it 
has  to  give.  Let  us  be  resolute  in  our  purposes. 
Let  us  know  that  we  know  now  in  part,  but  know 
what  we  know.  Let  us  adopt  Franklin's  advice, 
''Have  you  somewhat  to  do  to-morrow,  do  it  to- 
day," and  comfort  ourselves  with  Butler's  opti- 
mism, 

"For  discords  make  the  sweetest  airs, 
And  curses  are  a  kind  of  prayers, ' ' 

and  if  possible  let  us  contribute  our  share  of  con- 
structive patriotism  to  the  solution  of  the  war's 
problems. 

In  the  Eevolution  there  was  a  ballad  by  Howard 
"Warren  very  popular  with  the  Americans  which 
ran, 

"That  seat  of  Science,  Athens, 
And  earth's  proud  mistress,  Rome, 

Where  now  are  all  their  glories? 
We  scarce  can  find  a  tomb. 

"Then  guard  your  rights,  Americans, 

Nor  stoop  to  lawless  sway. 
Oppose !     Oppose !     Oppose !     Oppose ! 

For  North  America." 

110 


V 


War  and  Education 

Let  us  oppose  for  North  America,  where  we 
must,  but  let  our  opposition  be  against  the  enemies 
abroad,  and  against  the  enemies  of  the  Republic 
within,  who  would  neglect  the  foundations  of  jus- 
tice, freedom  and  mutual  respect. 

Let  us  not  go  so  far  in  our  battle  for  world  free- 
dom, as  the  orator  of  the  French  Revolution  was 
ready  to  go,  who  according  to  Taine  said — *'I 
would  take  my  own  head  by  the  hair,  cut  it  off,  and 
presenting  it  to  the  despot,  would  say  to  him, 
Tyrant,  behold  the  head  of  a  free  man. ' '  But  let 
us  join  with  Lafayette  and  ''heartily  address  our 
prayers  to  Heaven,  that  by  her  known  wisdom, 
patriotism,  and  liberality  of  principles,  as  well  as 
firmness  of  conduct,  America  may  preserve  the 
consequence  she  has  so  well  acquired,  and  con- 
tinue to  command  the  admiration  of  the  world. ' ' 


lU 


EDUCATION  FOR  THE  NEW  ERA 

WE  welcome  you  to  a  New  Year,  and  to  a  new 
era.  To  the  old  Lafayette  and  yet  to  a 
Lafayette  which  can  never  be  the  same  college  that 
it  was  before  the  war.  Colleges  change  with  the 
changes  in  the  hearts  of  their  men.  We  take  it  for 
granted  that  the  material  part  of  the  college,  build- 
ings, the  brick  and  stone,  this  windoAV  behind  me, 
that  these,  at  least,  are  the  same  to-day  as  yester- 
day, and  that  they  look  alike  to  Freshman  and  to 
Senior.  But  a  larger  experience  convinces  us 
that  this  is  not  the  case.  What  we  see  depends,  in 
fact,  on  what  we  are.  The  college  trustee  who  is 
an  alumnus,  can  never  see  the  college  buildings 
exactly  as  the  new  trustee  from  outside  who  looks 
at  them  through  no  boyhood  memories,  and  whose 
mental  pictures  are  tinged  with  no  youthful  asso- 
ciations. Wordsworth  was  but  voicing  the  uni- 
versal experience  of  the  race  when  he  wrote  on  re- 
visiting Yarrow,  ''I  see — but  not  by  sight  alone, 
loved  Yarrow,  have  I  won  thee?" 

But  if  past  associations  determine  what  we  see, 
if  the  Lafayette  we  see  to-day  is  determined  in 
large  measure  by  our  way  of  looking  at  her  in  the 
past,  still  more,  is  the  Lafayette  of  to-day  a  differ- 
ent vision  to  each  one  of  us  according  to  each 
man's  plans,  purposes  and  aspirations  for  the  fu- 

Address  at  the  opening  of  Lafayette  College,  January,  1919. 

1  12 


Education  for  the  New  Era 

ture.  There  is  a  curious  selective  law  of  assimila- 
tion running  through  all  nature.  Out  of  the  same 
universe  the  plant  and  the  animal  according  to  the 
law  of  their  being  seize,  feel,  taste,  digest  and  con- 
vert to  their  own  purposes  material  for  their  dif- 
fering lives.  This  law  holds  not  only  for  plant 
and  animal  but  also  for  mind  and  spirit.  We  see 
that  for  which  we  are  looking.  We  make  our  own 
in  an  intellectual  and  spiritual  way  that  which  fits 
into  our  plans  and  ambitions.  The  broader  and 
more  far-reaching  our  interests,  the  greater  our 
experience,  the  more  sights  and  sounds  enter  our 
consciousness  and  become  a  part  of  our  life.  If 
the  senses  and  sensual  appetites  have  the  upper 
hand  in  a  man's  life  he  will  meet  from  hour  to  hour 
and  from  day  to  day  experiences  which  will  feed 
and  nourish  and  develop  these  appetites.  His 
roommate  on  the  other  hand  may  live  largely  the 
same  life,  walk  the  same  paths  and  outwardly  at 
least  experience  the  same  events,  yet  because  his 
affections  are  set  upon  higher  things  his  purposes 
and  ambitions  directed  elsewhere,  the  roommate 
will  by  the  universal  selective  process  of  assimila- 
tion, experience  a  totally  different  life  and  absorb 
and  make  his  own  totally  different  elements.  You 
w411  discover  in  the  laboratory  of  biology  or  in  the 
laboratory  of  chemistry  no  more  infallible  law,  of 
assimilation  or  of  chemical  affinity,  than  the  law  of 
spiritual  assimilation  expressed  by  John  Bur- 
roughs in  his  lines, 

"The  waters  know  their  own  and  draw 
The  brook  that  springs  in  yonder  heights; 
113 


Education  for  the  New  Era 

So  flows  the  good  with  equal  law 
Unto  tlie  soul  of  pure  delights." 

We  had  forgotten  before  the  war  what  a  large 
part  the  "svill  and  desire  played  in  determining  our 
world.  We  had  begun  to  think  of  a  thirst  for 
pleasure,  a  selfish  sparing  of  ourselves  effort  or 
pain,  as  natural  inevitable  parts  of  ourselves, 
which  by  an  inevitable  law  must  seek  their  satis- 
faction. And  then  with  the  war  there  came  in 
the  mightier  passions  and  these  dominant  passions 
showed  their  power  in  that  out  of  the  most  repul- 
sive material  of  experience,  mud,  filth,  blood,  ver- 
min, disease,  and  pain  they  could  assimilate  a 
life  of  the  spirit  far  more  beautiful,  more  real, 
more  satisfying,  more  pleasurable  even  in  the  best 
sense,  than  the  sensuously  pleasant  life  which  the 
body  had  tried  to  build  for  itself  in  peace.  I  trust 
that  we  shall  not  forget  too  soon  the  lesson  the  war 
has  taught  that  a  man's  purposes,  ideals  and  ambi- 
tions are  not  the  product  of  his  material  en^^.ron- 
ment,  but  that  there  is  within  him  a  spiritual 
power  and  will  which  can  hear  and  respond  to  the 
call  of  other  spirits  and  of  great  ideals. 

I  feel  reasonably  sure  then  in  saying  that  I  wel- 
come you  to  a  new  Lafayette  and  to  a  new  era,  not 
so  much  because  Lafayette  is  changed  as  because 
you  are  changed. 

Some  of  my  cynical  friends  nevertheless  say 
this  talk  of  a  new  era  is  overdone.  We  don't 
think  college  life  \vi\\  be  very  different,  we  don't 
think  national  life  will  be  very  different  after  the 

114 


Education  for  the  New  Era 

war  from  what  it  was  before  the  war.  The  men 
we  meet  are  the  same  men  to-day  that  they  were 
four  years  ago. 

Now,  of  course,  if  this  be  true,  that  the  men  of 
to-day  are  the  same  as  the  men  of  four  years  ago, 
then  I  am  wrong  in  supposing  that  you  return  to 
a  new  Lafayette  or  stand  on  the  threshold  of  a 
new  era.  At  least  I  am  wrong,  if  men  everywhere 
a,re  the  same,  because  the  new  era,  and  our  life 
here  at  Lafayette  while  largely  dependent  on  our 
own  plans  and  ambitions,  is  also  determined  by 
the  impact  of  the  plans  and  ambitions  of  other  men 
upon  our  lives. 

I  base  my  belief  in  a  new  era  and  a  new  Lafay- 
ette, not  only  on  what  I  know  of  the  changes  in 
you  but  of  the  changes  which  I  know  have  occurred 
in  other  men.  America  with  her  President  travel- 
ing and  conferring  in  other  lands  can  never  be  the 
America  she  was  with  her  President  tied  to  Wash- 
ington. Two  hundred  million  Teutons  without  a 
Kaiser  introduce  a  totally  new  force  into  the  world 
— a  totally  new  factor  which  must  in  the  long  run 
affect  our  experience.  Hungry  millions  in  Russia, 
seething  millions  awaking  to  new  life  in  China, 
Japan  and  India  change  the  conditions  of  the  prob- 
lem which  you  have  to  solve  for  yourself  here  in 
Lafayette  College,  and  whether  you  are  a  new  man 
yourself  or  not,  the  world  in  which  you  must  live 
is  changed,  so  that  you  cannot  be  the  same  or  lead 
the  same  life  in  all  ways,  if  you  would. 

How  happy  we  should  all  be  if  we  could  meet 
here  on  the  threshold  of  this  new  year  a  divinely 

115 


Education  for  the  New  Era 

inspired  guide  who  would  foretell  all  things  which 
are  to  come  to  pass  in  the  next  ten  years,  and  give 
us  a  chart  and  a  compass  by  which  we  might  steer. 
There  are  perplexities  enough  in  shaping  one's 
course  through  a  well  charted  ocean,  but  the  first 
ships  which  seek  to  navigate  after  a  volcanic  erup- 
tion must  feel  their  way,  sounding  carefully  from 
time  to  time  with  the  lead  of  experience.  Of 
course  the  stars  remain  unchanged.  The  great 
fixed  immutable  principles  of  right  and  wrong,  of 
love  to  God  and  to  fellow  man,  are  the  same  to-day 
as  before  the  war,  but  our  Scylla  and  our 
Charybdis  are  shifted  and  the  stars  will  not  help 
us  to  discover  or  to  avoid  them.  With  what  equip- 
ment then  shall  we  set  sail?  First,  I  would  say 
with  the  name  and  location  of  our  port  clearly 
fixed  in  mind.  The  big  things,  the  things  that 
really  matter,  have  been  brought  so  much  closer  to 
us  by  the  Avar,  have  been  so  much  more  in  our 
thoughts  than  usual,  that  it  ought  to  be  easier  for 
us  to  determine  just  what  we  conceive  the  purpose 
of  life  to  be  than  in  ordinary  times.  We  want  to 
be  perfectly  frank  with  ourselves,  when  we  think 
about  ''those  who  sleep  in  Flanders  fields,"  or 
who  return  crippled  and  maimed.  We  cannot 
have  two  measuring  rules  for  life,  one  for  them 
and  one  for  us.  If  their  lives  were  a  success, 
if  we  rate  them  high  by  the  measuring  rod  we  use, 
then  we  must  not  use  for  our  own  lives  a  measur- 
ing rod  which  applied  to  theirs  would  show  deficit 
and  loss.  Out  of  the  turmoil  of  this  war  I  expect 
to  see  American  college  men  emerge  with  a  more 

ii6 


Education  for  the  New  Era 

well  considered  philosophy  of  life  than  has  been 
theirs  in  the  past.  This  will  make  American  col- 
lege life  more  mature  and  will  be  the  first  item 
of  equipment  for  the  new  voyage. 

Second,  if  your  destination  is  firmly  fixed  in 
mind,  the  next  requisite  for  the  new  voyage  is  an 
open  mind.  It  is  characteristic  of  a  new  era  that 
we  cannot  use  our  fathers'  charts  or  go  by  the  old 
formulae.  If  you  know  as  much  as  your  fellow  of 
equal  age,  if  your  heart  is  as  pure  and  as  stout  as 
his,  you  are  as  qualified  to  shape  the  course  as  he. 
But  you  must  sail  in  the  experimental  spirit,  ready 
to  be  guided  by  the  experience  of  the  day,  and  to 
alter  and  realter  your  course  as  the  land  and  cur- 
rents and  winds  and  tides  may  suggest. 

And,  third,  I  would  mention  courage  and  faith, 
always  preeminent  virtues  in  youth  but  never 
more  so  than  when  setting  forth  to  a  land  you 
know  not. 

And  last,  but  not  least,  knowledge — knowledge 
of  two  kinds,  first  a  knowledge  of  men  and  of  the 
experiences  of  other  men  sailing  in  every  direction, 
and  under  all  conditions,  an  experience  which  has 
been  treasured  up  in  language  and  literature,  in 
philosophy  and  history,  in  art  and  music,  in 
science,  tools  and  machines,  and  secondly  the 
knowledge  of  methods  and  devices  for  reading  and 
interpreting  for  yourselves  new  experiences  and 
drawing  proper  conclusions  therefrom,  and  of  the 
technique  for  utilizing  material  of  all  kinds  for 
such  machines,  tools  or  structures  as  you  may  re- 
quire to  successfully  complete  the  voyage.    If  con- 

117 


Education  for  the  New  Era 

ditions  of  life  do  not  change,  tools  need  not  change 
vory  much.  Life  by  rote  is  not  a  very  difficult 
matter.  But  if  you  are  going  to  be  an  adventurer 
and  leader  in  the  new  era  you  will  feel  the  need  of 
knomng  all  that  is  known,  for  after  all,  it  is  but 
very  little  that  we  do  know,  or  if  you  are  not  to  be 
a  leader  but  hope  to  be  taken  along  on  the  expedi- 
tion, your  chances  of  going  in  the  leaders'  boat  will 
be  multiplied  a  thousand  times  if  there  is  some 
one  thing  you  can  do  as  well  or  better  than  any  one 
else.  Wars  undoubtedly  created  kings,  called 
forth  into  prominence  the  competent  man,  the  man 
who  could  do  what  had  to  be  done,  and  while  the 
present  war  has  been  no  king-making  war  in  the 
old  sense,  yet  like  all  previous  wars  it  has  served 
to  reveal  men  of  ability  and  to  place  them  in  posi- 
tions of  responsibility  and  power.  It  has  done 
more  than  that.  It  has  taught  democracy  in  a 
way  that  the  lesson  has  never  been  taught  before, 
how  democracy  above  every  form  of  government  is 
dependent  for  its  success  or  failure,  for  its  effi- 
ciency ;  for  getting  done  the  thing  it  wants  done ; 
upon  the  caliber  of  men  it  can  find  for  its  service. 
And  democracy  proposes  to  see  to  it,  that  if  our 
present  system  of  education  will  not  supply  ade- 
quate men  for  the  nation's  tasks,  the  system  shall 
be  strengthened  and  improved  for  that  purpose, 
and  in  this  great  task  we  of  Lafayette  must  do 
our  share.  The  netv  Lafayette  will,  I  trust,  ac- 
cordingly, lay  greater  emphasis  on  keeping  fit 
physically,  on  the  splendid  human  animal,  which 
can  stand  erect  and  serve  the  mind  instantly  with- 

118 


Education  for  the  New  Era 

out  fatigue ;  on  a  spirit  of  service  to  the  nation,  a 
larger  patriotism  which  will  perform  the  full  serv- 
ice of  the  private  in  the  ranks  in  peace  as  well  as 
war,  so  that  our  whole  civil  life  shall  be  well 
ordered — on  a  broader  brotherhood,  which  will 
apply  the  ideals  of  fellowship  and  mutual  helpful- 
ness for  which  our  fraternities  and  colleges  stand 
to  the  larger  units  of  national,  and  international 
life,  calling  nothing  common  or  unclean  which  God 
has  cleansed.  As  a  discriminating  French  writer 
has  recently  observed — 'Hhe  part  of  America  in 
the  war  appears  great,  but  that  which  she  is  called 
to  play  in  the  peace  of  to-morrow  is  unprece- 
dented." 

And  for  that  part  she  and  you  are  peculiarly 
fitted.  "To  the  American,"  says  the  Frenchman, 
''his  fatherland  is  not  behind  him  in  a  venerated 
past,  it  is  before  him,  in  a  future  that  he  foresees 
and  is  helping  to  bring  into  being.  'Go  Ahead!' 
The  old  device  is  truer  here  than  anywhere  else. 
The  American  is  moving  toward  his  fatherland 
(his  patrie)  and  creating  it  by  the  very  movement 
in  which  he  seeks  for  it.  He  is  conscious  that  she 
is  his  work,  that  she  comes  forth  from  him  rather 
than  he  from  her.  His  country  is  more  than  any- 
thing else,  a  will  to  be,  a  part  of  his  own  will,  a 
hope  rather  than  a  reality  and  a  hope  to  be  real- 
ized. He  will  realize  it.  That  is  his  true  reason 
for  being."  You  too,  we  trust,  will  realize  the 
new  Lafayette,  and  so  your  better  selves.  That, 
indeed,  is  your  true  reason  for  being  here.  And 
for  that  we  wish  you  all.  Godspeed. 

119 


THE  COLLEGE  AND  THE  SHADOW 
OF  WAR 

OVER  in  Pennsylvania  our  careful  Board  of 
Censors  of  Motion  Pictures  have  very  exact 
ideas  of  propriety.  I  am  told,  for  example,  that 
a  kiss  may  be  fifteen  feet  of  film  long,  but  that  a 
kiss  more  than  fifteen  feet  long  is  outlawed.  It 
is  delightful  to  have  such  very  accurate  and  ex- 
act standards  by  which  to  distinguish  wrong  from 
right,  and  no  doubt  it  occurs  to  you  that  toast- 
masters  might  very  well  organize  a  censorship 
along  the  same  efficient  lines.  It  is  always  a 
puzzle,  however,  to  a  college  president  to  know 
just  how  to  tell  the  alumni  the  year's  story  in 
fifteen  minutes,  and  at  the  same  time  avoid  every- 
thing of  vital  moment,  lest  he  be  suspected  of 
bringing  the  shop  to  the  banqueting  hall. 

Lafayette  himself  solved  the  problem  of  a  speech 
to  New  Yorkers  by  not  visiting  New  York  during 
the  Revolution.  Neither  on  his  first  or  second 
visits  to  America,  but  only  on  his  third  visit  when 
he  was  no  longer  in  service  did  he  venture  into 
New  York,  and  then  he  paid  the  consequences  by 
having  to  make  a  speech.  With  your  president, 
however,  the  beginning  of  the  third  year  of  service 
means  the  third  visit  to  the  New  York  alumni, 
and  therefore  the  third  speech.     What  I  could  tell 


Address  to  the  New  York  Alumni  of  Lafayette  College,  New 
York  City,  February,  1917. 

120 


The  College  and  the  Shadow  of  War 

you  of  the  college,  that  it  is  larger  than  ever, 
richer  than  ever,  more  wholesome  in  its  life,  more 
desperately  in  need  of  money  to  help  its  faculty 
meet  the  30%  increase  in  the  cost  of  living,  would 
be  overshadowed,  I  fear,  by  the  larger  questions, 
now  engaging  your  minds  and  the  flashes  of  im- 
pending storm  on  the  muttering  horizon. 

As  I  walked  down  Fifth  Avenue  to-day  and 
saw  more  Stars  and  Stripes  than  ever  decorated 
the  city  on  the  most  festal  days,  I  felt  and  you 
feel  that  there  is  only  one  subject  uppermost  in 
our  minds  as  American  citizens,  and  that  is  loy- 
alty. And  in  loyalty,  Lafayette  is  not  behind  her 
brothers.  True  to  their  name,  true  to  the  immor- 
tal example  of  the  great  marquis,  the  men  of 
Lafayette  of  this  generation  as  of  former  genera- 
tions have  already  given  expression  of  their  loy- 
alty, their  readiness  to  serve  their  country  and 
the  cause  of  freedom. 

Shall  we  talk  then  of  campaigning  and  discard 
education  except  military  education  for  the  timef 
What  will  be  the  effect  of  war  on  our  colleges  if 
war  comes  I  I  am  asked.  Shall  we  lose,  for  the 
time,  interest  in  education,  because  of  our  interest 
in  war?  Will  loyalty  to  country  sap  loyalty  to 
Lafayette?  The  answer  is  hard  to  find  in  ad- 
vance. One  thing  we  know  with  great  assurance, 
if  we  may  depend  at  all  upon  the  lessons  of  his- 
tory, and  that  is,  if  war  comes,  just  as  surely  then 
will  come,  at  war's  close,  a  great  revival,  a  great 
renaissance,  a  new  era  in  education.  It  was  so  in 
Germany  after  the  Napoleonic  wars,  it  was  so  in 

121 


The  College  and  the  Shadow  of  War 

Germany  and  France  after  the  Franco-Prussian 
War,  it  was  so  in  Japan  after  the  Russo-Japanese 
War.  In  the  niidst  of  the  Revolution,  Thomas 
Jefferson  withdrew  to  the  legislature  of  Virginia 
to  draft  laws  for  a  Virginia  school  system.  At  the 
close  of  the  Civil  War  General  Lee  accepted  the 
presidency  of  a  college.  Why  should  this  happen 
apparently  in  contravention  of  the  universal  law 
that  like  begets  like?  When  a  nation  is  in  th? 
midst  of  the  diabolic  fury  of  war,  it  is  natural 
that  it  should  think  of  shells  and  submarines,  aero- 
planes and  poisonous  gases  as  the  final  arbiters 
of  human  destiny.  But  when  the  smoke  of  battle 
clears  away,  the  persistent  questioning  of  the  hu- 
man spirit  drives  it  to  ask,  How  did  all  this  come 
about!  Has  it  a  meaning?  What  is  beyond?  It 
sees  submarine  and  aeroplane,  shell  and  bayonet 
as  the  children  of  intellect,  as  servants  of  the  pas- 
sions and  ideas  of  men,  and  is  forced  to  say  if  the 
servants  are  so  great  and  so  terrible  what  of  the 
human  spirit  which  they  serve?  And  so  man  re- 
turns to  education,  to  the  attempt  to  draw  out  the 
inexhaustible  powers  of  the  mysterious  being  man. 

Some  never  mend  their  roofs  when  it  is  not 
raining  because  they  do  not  need  a  whole  roof 
then,  and  when  it  is  raining  it  is  too  late.  This 
is  another  lesson  which  war  teaches  regarding  edu- 
cation. 

When  war  is  as  near  as  it  is  to-day,  we  feel  in- 
stinctively that  it  is  as  wrong  to  attempt  to  pro- 
claim war  from  the  advertising  columns  of  the 
newspaper  as  it  is  to  attempt  to  direct  the  policy 

122 


The  College  and  the  Shadow  of  War 

of  the  nation  toward  peace  by  a  postcard  poll. 
The  die  was  cast  long  since.  Not  Emperor  Wil- 
liam, not  the  German  staff  of  1914,  but  the  Nietsch- 
ian  philosophers  of  the  superman,  and  the  im- 
perialistic dreamers  molded  Germany's  destiny. 
Not  von  Moltke  and  Hindenburg,  but  his  boyish 
heroes,  Theodoric,  Frederick  the  Great.  It  re- 
quires the  storm  to  demonstrate  the  significance 
of  a  sand  or  rock  foundation.  It  requires  a  great 
national  crisis  such  as  war  to  show  that  the  acad- 
emic molds  the  practical  more  than  the  practical 
molds  the  academic.  It  is  a  mistake  to  think  of 
war  as  a  test  of  the  relative  importance  of  mind 
and  matter,  of  brute  force  against  ideas,  as  many 
conceive  it.  The  war  of  to-day  is  the  child  of 
mind  just  as  surely  as  the  school  is  the  child  of 
mind.  If  your  purpose  is  to  kill  then  if  you  are 
intelligent  you  will  use  the  tools  best  fitted  for 
killing,  just  as,  if  your  purpose  is  to  cure  you  will 
use  the  drugs  best  adapted  to  curing.  Mind  will 
not  be  a  Christian  Scientist  in  war  any  more  than 
in  medicine.  War  may,  therefore,  shift  the  em- 
phasis in  education,  it  may  change  the  curriculum, 
it  will  not  substitute  God  and  gunpowder,  or  gun- 
powder as  God  for  the  orderly  knowledge  of  man 
and  the  universe,  even  though  that  universe  may 
include  more  shells  and  submarines. 

Loyalty  to  Lafayette  then  should  grow  and  find 
a  rebirth  in  loyalty  to  nation  even  if  that  loyalty 
shall  mean  war.  War  will  make  us  very  con- 
scious of  the  defects  in  our  education,  and  we 
shall  be  more  ready  to  give  to  Lafayette  and  to 

123 


The  College  and  the  Shadow  of  War 

other  colleges  and  technical  schools  the  money 
necessary  for  adequate  teaching. 

As  Admiral  Fiske  has  said  recentl}^  the  nation 
that  invents  will  win,  whether  it  is  the  cheese  box 
on  the  raft,  the  tank,  the  submarine,  or  the  pill 
on  the  pole,  victor}''  will  be  not  with  the  well  drilled 
soldier  who  never  does  anything  but  what  he  has 
been  trained  to  do,  but  with  the  adventurous  mind 
in  the  scientist's  laboratory. 

There  is  a  good  deal  being  said  to-day  about 
universal  service  as  the  essential  element  in  mili- 
tary preparedness,  and  a  good  deal  remains  to  be 
said,  but  it  will  have  to  be  a  more  comprehensive 
universal  service  than  that  conceived  by  the  De- 
partment of  War  if  it  is  to  be  effective.  To  call 
upon  our  colleges  to  train  their  young  men  for 
service  in  the  trench  or  behind  the  mortar,  and  not 
at  the  same  time  to  organize  men  for  work  in  the 
machine  shop  or  in  the  coal  mines,  nor  make  pro- 
vision for  more  technical  advisers  of  the  Govern- 
ment, for  Geheimrats  in  economics,  in  history,  in 
international  law,  in  chemistry,  in  biolog}%  in  agri- 
culture, for  more  Ph.D.'s  in  chemical  engineer- 
ing, more  mechanical  engineers,  more  financiers 
and  inventors,  is  to  make  the  same  mistake  as  the 
child  mind  which  conceives  the  policeman  as  the 
Government  of  New  York.  On  one  thing  America 
seems  to  have  clearly  made  up  her  mind,  if  it  be- 
comes a  question  between  installing  the  soldier  as 
schoolmaster,  or  installing  the  schoolmaster  as 
warrior,  America  will  choose  the  latter.  War  to- 
day is  too  complex  to  be  entrusted  solely  to  the 

124 


The  College  and  the  Shadow  of  War 

fighter.  The  war  is  costing  England  a  million 
dollars  an  hour,  it  is  reported.  If  you  give  La- 
fayette a  million  dollars  for  its  chemical  depart- 
ment and  the  result  is  an  invention  which  would 
shorten  the  war  an  hour,  it  would  pay  for  itself. 

Huxley  in  a  public  lecture  at  the  London  Royal 
Society  once  said : 

''Pasteur's  discoveries  alone  would  suffice  to 
cover  the  war  indemnity  of  five  milliards  paid  by 
France  to  Germany  in  1870."  No!  Let  us  keep 
our  faith  in  education  even  in  these  war  times,  and 
when  we  are  tempted  to  prize  the  man  of  action 
above  the  man  of  thought,  let  us  remember  the 
reply  of  a  friend  to  one  who  sought  Pasteur  as  a 
physician:  "He  does  not  cure  individuals,  he 
only  tries  to  cure  humanity." 

Science's  last  analysis  of  matter  speaks  of  col- 
lisions of  electrons  as  the  basis  of  all  that  is  real 
and  beautiful.  We  shall  not  be  unscientific,  there- 
fore, if  we  see  in  the  collisions  of  this  awful  year 
of  war  the  fundamentals  of  a  more  beautiful  world 
than  we  have  yet  known.  We  want  to  know  how 
real  moral  law  is  in  the  universe.  Is  it  a  polite 
convention,  which  we  may  discard  as  we  do  our 
clothes  when  we  have  to  swim  for  our  lives,  or  are 
collisions  with  the  moral  law  just  as  real,  just  as 
much  to  be  reckoned  with  in  the  real  world,  as 
collisions  of  the  subdivided  atom? 

We  revere  to-day  the  memory  of  Lafayette. 
We  think  of  him  as  the  wealthy  aristocrat,  the 
distinguished  officer,  the  friend  of  Washington, 
the  idol  of  a  grateful  people.     We  forget  the  La- 

125 


The  College  and  the  Shadow  of  War 

fayette  the  exile,  imprisoned  for  five  long  years, 
first  by  the  King  of  Prussia  with  heavy  manacles 
locked  on  hands  and  feet  in  a  cell  so  damp  that  all 
hair  came  off  his  head,  and  later  in  a  worse  dun- 
geon by  Francis  of  Austria,  with  no  word  to 
friends  of  his  whereabouts  or  whether  he  was  dead 
or  alive. 

We  forget  the  message  sent  to  the  imprisoned 
Frenchman  who  had  had  to  flee  from  his  own 
country  because,  while  himself  a  soldier,  he  was 
not  willing  to  give  the  right  of  government  un- 
restrictedly into  the  hands  of  the  greatest  soldier 
of  modern  times,  that  the  King  of  Prussia  would 
release  him  from  prison  if  he  would  assist  in  con- 
quering France,  and  the  response  sent  back  with 
scorn:  ''Tell  your  master,  that  'Lafayette  is  still 
Lafayette.'  "  We  forget  the  trials  of  the  loyal 
wife,  who  was  permitted  by  the  Austrian  Emperor 
to  visit  her  husband  in  prison  only  on  the  condition 
that  she  should  not  come  out  of  the  prison  again 
while  she  lived,  or  of  the  innocent  daughters  who 
for  twenty-two  months  shared  the  imprisonment 
of  their  parents.  We  forget  that  the  proposal  to 
take  steps  for  the  relief  of  Lafayette  was  defeated 
not  only  in  the  British  Parliament,  but  that  on 
March  3,  1797,  in  the  American  Congress,  a  reso- 
lution requesting  the  President  to  take  such  meas- 
ures as  he  might  deem  it  expedient  to  adopt,  to 
restore  to  liberty  our  fellow  citizen  General  La- 
fayette, was  defeated  by  a  vote  of  52  to  32.  We 
feel  gratitude  to  France  for  Lafayette's  part  in 
the  Kevolution  and  forget  that  he  came  in  the  face 

126 


The  College  and  the  Shadow  of  War 

of  opposition  from  the  government  of  France  as 
well  as  from  the  government  of  England,  and  that 
his  companion  on  his  arrival  was  the  Bavarian 
Baron  de  Kalb. 

Every  man  has  two  countries,  said  Franklin,  his 
own  and  France,  and  so  the  world  feels  to-day, 
but  a  century  ago  we  were  on  the  verge  of  war 
with  France  to  maintain  the  freedom  of  the  seas, 
and  the  threat  was  then  made  that  the  French 
party  in  America  would  be  stirred  up  to  defeat  the 
President  at  home  if  war  should  come.  Loyalty 
is  not  as  simple  of  definition  as  the  Pennsylvania 
censors  have  found  the  definition  of  a  proper  kiss. 
The  ''Master,  Master,  and  kissed  him,"  may  be  in 
truth  a  betrayal. 

But  though  we  may  grope  in  the  confusing 
kaleidoscope  of  human  affairs  for  the  government 
or  people  to  whom  we  may  be  ever  loyal,  it  is  not 
so  hard  in  the  realm  of  ideas  and  ideals.  La- 
fayette was  Lafayette,  and  freedom  was  freedom, 
and  constitutional  government  was  constitutional 
government,  in  dungeon  or  beneath  the  Arch  of 
Triumph,  and  the  words  of  Lafayette,  who  had  ex- 
perienced both  a  dungeon  and  triumph,  in  reply 
to  the  farewell  address  of  John  Quincy  Adams  are 
worthy  our  loyalty  to-day — ''The  cherishing  of 
that  union  between  the  States,  as  it  has  been  the 
farewell  entreaty  of  our  great  paternal  Washing- 
ton, and  will  ever  have  the  dying  prayer  of  every 
patriotic  American,  so  it  has  become  the  sacred 
pledge  of  the  emancipation  of  the  world;  an  ob- 
ject, in  which,  I  am  happy  to  observe,  that  the 

127 


The  College  and  the  Shadow  of  War 

Amoricaii  people,  Avhile  they  q^yo  the  animating 
example  of  successful  free  institutions,  show  them- 
selves every  day,  more  anxiously  interested." 

I  toast,  therefore,  in  the  words  of  Lafayette, 
''America,  the  sacred  pledge  of  the  emancipation 
of  the  world" — and  I  join  with  it,  a  toast  to  his 
namesake,  our  o^\ti  Lafayette,  and  to  its  motto, 
"VERITAS  LiBEEABiT,"  the  truth  sliall  make  you  free, 
in  the  words  placed  on  Lafayette's  triumphal 
floral  arch  in  Washington : 

' '  Our  fathers  in  glory  now  sleep 
Who  gathered  with  thee  to  the  fight, 
But  the  sons  will  eternally  keep, 
The  tablet  of  gratitude  bright. 

We  bow  not  the  neck, 

We  bend  not  the  knee, 

But  our  hearts,  Lafayette, 

We  surrender  to  Thee." 


128 


POOLING  OF  COLLEGE  INTERESTS  AS 
A  WAR  MEASURE 

THERE  is  a  widespread  feeling  that  American 
education  is  not  organized  to  make  its  great- 
est contribution  to  the  war.  The  experience  of 
the  last  six  months  has  shown  that  the  need  is  two- 
fold :  first,  the  need  on  the  part  of  the  Government; 
second,  the  need  on  the  part  of  the  colleges;  that 
in  both  cases  the  need  is  not  so  much  for  unity 
of  spirit  and  purpose  as  for  coordination,  which 
is  unity  at  work. 

The  Government  at  Washington  needs  during 
the  war  an  administrator  of  education  of  some 
sort  who  will  be  of  sufficient  dignity  and  authority 
to  rank  with  the  food  and  coal  administrators,  and 
to  have  authoritative  standing  with  the  chief  of 
staff.  His  function  would  be  to  coordinate  the 
demands  made  upon  education  by  the  Government 
in  the  prosecution  of  the  war. 

The  colleges  need  a  war  council  with  at  least 
seven  bureaus — a  bureau  of  propaganda,  of  legis- 
lation, of  statistics,  of  finance,  of  promotion,  of 
personnel  and  of  international  relations,  as  well  as 
national  officers,  who  shall  make  the  educational 
point  of  view  at  least  as  potent  in  the  councils 
of  the  nation  as  that  of  organized  labor,  or  of  the 


An  address  delivered  before  the  Association  of  American  Col- 
leges, at  Chicago,  January   12,   1918. 

129 


Pooling  of  College  Interests 

anti-liquor  movement,  or  of  woman's  suffrage.  I 
will  present  briefly  some  of  the  considerations 
which  have  led  me  to  these  conclusions. 

Lord  Bryce  in  liis  recent  article  on  the  ''Worth 
of  Ancient  Literature  to  the  Modem  World,"  says, 
"The  Greeks,  like  children,  saw  things  together 
which  moderns  have  learnt  to  distinguish  and  to 
keep  apart."  I  want  to  ask  you  either  to  go  back 
with  the  Greeks  or  forward  mth  the  little  children 
of  the  Kingdom  this  morning  and  see  things  to- 
gether which  as  moderns  we  have  learned  to  dis- 
tinguish and  keep  apart.  For,  as  the  vice-presi- 
dent of  the  Guaranty  Trust  Company  told  the 
Illinois  bankers,  perhaps  the  greatest  lesson  we  are 
learning  from  our  excursion  ' '  over  the  top ' '  is  the 
need  of  national  unity.  Unity  is  the  watchword 
of  the  day,  whether  on  the  battle  line  in  Italy,  the 
council  chamber  in  Paris,  in  the  Shipping  Board  at 
Washington,  or  in  this  Association  of  American 
Colleges.  The  sacrifices  demanded  of  the  individ- 
ual citizen  in  the  name  of  patriotism  have  taught 
a  gospel  of  assent  to  a  land  where  individualism 
and  dissent  had  become  rampant.  Even  before 
the  war  the  organization  of  this  association  ex- 
pressed the  need  for  greater  unity  of  action  among 
colleges,  and  this  year  the  word  ''cooperation" 
appears  mth  special  prominence  on  this  pro- 
gram. I  wish  to  raise  the  question  whether  our 
colleges  can  go  farther  than  cooperation,  and  by 
pooling  their  interests  for  the  war  advance  the 
national  interest. 

The  present  popularity  of  the  word  "pooling" 

130 


As  a  War  Measure 

reminds  me  that  I  have  lived  through  a  complete 
era.  As  an  undergraduate  student,  I  wrote  an 
essay  in  competition  for  a  prize  on  "The  Inter- 
state Commerce  Commission, ' '  then  a  new  experi- 
ment in  government,  and  a  device  inaugurated  by 
a  people  to  whom  the  word  "pooling"  was  an- 
athema. To-day  the  readiness  of  the  railroads  to 
pool  freight,  and  to  maintain  joint  traffic  bureaus, 
expediting  the  necessities  of  the  war  by  the  most 
direct  lines,  excites  only  the  highest  praise  and 
admiration.  The  readiness  of  one  road  to  become 
a  freight  road,  while  another  remains  a  passenger 
road,  the  sharing  of  pet  terminals  and  the  yielding 
of  trade-marks  such  as  "Your  Watch  is  Your 
Timetable,"  "The  Standard  Railroad  of  Amer- 
ica," etc.,  indicates  a  submergence  of  institutional 
pride  which  no  one  would  have  thought  possible 
three  years  ago.  Up  to  this  time  the  necessities 
of  the  war  have  not  forced  upon  educational  insti- 
tutions any  such  radical  change  of  program  as  in 
the  case  of  the  railroads.  The  necessity,  which  is 
said  to  be  the  mother  of  invention,  is  discerned  by 
the  far-seeing  college  men  on  the  horizon,  but  is 
not  yet  upon  us.  We  have  not  heard  from  Eng- 
land, France,  Canada,  or  even  Germany,  of  any 
constructive  changes  in  the  educational  program 
or  institutional  life  due  to  the  war.  We  know  that 
the  colleges  stand  empty;  we  know  that  they  have 
been  used  for  hospitals  and  for  military  barracks ; 
we  know  that  women  are  replacing  men  as  students 
in  increasing  numbers ;  we  know  the  manifold  serv- 
ices rendered  the  state  by  members  of  the  faculties 

131 


Pooling  of  College  Interests 

in  the  guidance  of  public  opinion,  in  scientific  in- 
vention, in  specialized  governmental  service.  We 
have  noted  the  leveling  effect  of  the  war  in  the 
pamphlet  on  '' British  Universities  and  the  War," 
which  reports  the  activities  of  Manchester,  Birm- 
ingham and  Leeds  on  complete  equality  with  Ox- 
ford and  Cambridge,  and  in  the  more  significant 
proposal  to  readjust  university  representation  in 
Parliament  so  as  to  extend  the  privilege  to  the 
provincial  universities  as  well  as  to  Oxford,  Cam- 
bridge and  London.  But  we  have  heard  of  no 
institutional  program  at  all  comparable  to  the  con- 
structive program  of  our  railroads.  The  colleges 
of  America  are  casting  about,  therefore,  for  ex- 
amples and  analogies  in  other  fields  of  human  ac- 
tivity which  they  may  safely  follow.  The  college 
trustee  who  is  a  railroad  man  naturally  thinks 
that  the  colleges  should  do  something  similar  to 
what  the  railroads  are  doing;  the  college  trustee 
who  is  a  drygoods  man  naturally  thinks  that  the 
college  should  do  something  similar  to  what  the 
drygoods  stores  are  doing — adopt  the  slogan, 
''Business  as  Usual,"  and  as  sales  fall  off  increase 
the  size  of  advertisements  in  the  daily  papers  and 
enter  into  a  costly  and  frantic  competition  for  the 
patronage  which  remains.  The  college  trustee 
who  is  a  broker  naturally  feels  that  the  colleges 
should  do  somewhat  as  the  bankers  and  brokers 
are  doing — get  a  leave  of  absence  from  their  regu- 
lar work  and  help  the  government  by  raising 
money  for  the  Red  Cross  or  by  selling  Liberty 
bonds.     The  college  trustee  who  is  a  manufacturer 

132 


As  a  War  Measure 

naturally  feels  that  the  college,  like  the  manufac- 
turer, should  adapt  its  plant  to  the  needs  of  the 
war,  discontinuing  the  Latin  and  Greek  lines  and 
enlarging  the  output  in  the  direction  of  chemistry, 
explosives  and  gas  engines.  So  that  just  as  the 
plant  which  in  peace  time  makes  drills  for  wells, 
now  makes  steel  casings  for  shells,  so  the  college, 
which  in  peace  time  makes  scholars,  will  in  war 
time  make  soldiers;  the  college,  which  in  peace 
time  seeks  to  refine  human  material,  will  in  war 
time  adopt  the  processes  which  tend  to  toughen 
and  harden. 

War,  in  the  words  of  the  Battle  Hymn  of  the 
Republic,  ''tries  out  the  souls  of  men  before  the 
judgment  seat"  in  many  ways.  To  the  teacher  it 
is  a  great  test  of  his  educational  faith.  Every  col- 
lege man  to-day  asks  himself,  "Is  what  we  are 
teaching  important?  Are  we  teaching  it  as  fast 
as  we  can,  or  as  thoroughly?  Are  we  developing 
our  men  physically  to  the  best  advantage?" 
Those  whose  educational  houses  are  builded  upon 
the  sand  have  already  been  swept  away;  those 
whose  educational  faith  has  firm  foundations  have 
had  their  belief  in  the  importance  of  their  task 
reenf orced  by  recent  events ;  and  just  because  the 
storm  has  blown  away  a  lot  of  the  unessential  dec- 
orations, see  the  essentials  and  their  significance 
more  clearly.  Such  a  company  of  educators 
naturally  ask  themselves,  "How  can  we  best  per- 
form a  task  fraught  with  such  importance  for  the 
nation?"  Shall  we  enter  upon  a  ruthless  period 
of  competition?     Shall  we  take  the  road  of  the 

133 


Pooling  of  College  Interests 

department  stores  and  increase  our  appropria- 
tions for  advertising,  send  out  more  agents  to 
drum  up  trade,  lower  educational  standards,  pro- 
vide short  cuts  to  degrees,  reduce  tuition  fees, 
offer  special  inducements  in  the  way  of  scholar- 
ships and  free  rooms,  and  so  each  of  us  in  his  own 
way  do  his  share  to  increase  the  number  of  college- 
trained  men  in  the  nation  and  save  our  institutions 
from  extinction?  Or,  is  there  some  better  way  by 
which  our  joint  expenditures  in  advertising  can  be 
directed  against  ignorance  and  forces  of  reaction, 
our  agents '  efforts  be  directed  toward  augmenting 
the  total  number  of  college  students  in  the  country 
rather  than  toward  increasing  our  own  enrollment 
at  the  expense  of  less  wide-awake  and  energetic 
institutions?  Shall  we  create  a  sincere  spirit  of 
cooperation  which  wdll  be  ''each  for  all  and  all 
for  each"?  Can  we  organize  some  sort  of  strate- 
gic war  board  which  will  secure  for  the  important 
interests  of  education  as  able  and  watchful  leader- 
ship as  is  enjoyed  by  the  labor  unions,  by  the  anti- 
liquor  forces,  or  by  the  cause  of  woman  *s  suffrage  ? 
For  there  is  no  question  about  the  importance 
of  education  for  war.  Brains,  trained  brains,  will 
win  the  war.  War  is  to-day  so  much  a  matter  of 
delicate  and  intricate  scientific  apparatus  that  only 
the  nation  equipped  for  scientific  education  can 
win.  But  if  "brains"  is  the  first  word  of  the 
countersign  by  which  we  pass  to  victory,  the 
second  is  ''coordination."  As  Major-General 
Squier  said  recently  in  Washington,  ' '  In  the  army 
of  to-day  arms  are  so  accurately  balanced  that  co- 

134 


As  a  War  Measure 

operation  is  the  keynote  of  the  whole  thing."  If 
the  artillery  continues  to  blaze  away  too  long  you 
kill  your  own  men.  When  the  barrage  stops  the 
front  line  men  must  be  ready.  Communication 
between  aeroplane,  artillery  and  trench  must  be 
absolutely  accurate  and  instantaneous.  Had  it 
been  so  at  Gallipoli  the  whole  history  of  the  war 
would  have  been  changed.  Unity  of  spirit  is  es- 
sential, but  coordination  is  no  less  so.  The  one 
will  give  us  a  mob,  the  other  an  orderly  proces- 
sion. The  great  manufacturers,  like  the  General 
Electric,  Western  Electric,  the  railroads  and  the 
automobile  manufacturers,  have  already  demon- 
strated that  America  excels  her  allies  in  her 
readiness  to  pool  individual  interests  for  the  suc- 
cess of  the  war.  We  already  have  more  of  this 
spirit  manifested  in  America  than  is  known  in 
England  after  three  years  of  war.  The  same 
spirit  exists  among  the  educational  leaders  of  the 
country.  Nowhere  has  the  response  been  more 
prompt  or  more  unanimous  to  the  country's  sum- 
mons. Education  has  shown  a  laudable  readiness 
to  follow,  but  for  some  reason  it  has  lacked  leader- 
ship and  coordination.  Perhaps  this  is  due  to 
the  fact  that  under  our  theory  of  government  edu- 
cation is  a  state,  not  a  national  function.  Perhaps 
it  is  due  to  an  old  jealousy  between  the  scholar  and 
the  soldier ;  between  the  military  caste  and  the  men 
of  books,  which  has  come  down  through  the  cen- 
turies and  finds  expression  in  our  own  adjutant- 
general's  office.  Perhaps  it  is  due  to  jealousy  be- 
tween labor  and  the  high-brow,  and  democracy's 

135 


Pooling  of  College  Interests 

natural  suspicion  of  the  expert.  Whatever  the 
cause,  it  is  an  undoubted  fact  that  education  is  one 
of  the  last  great  factors  in  our  civilization  to  or- 
ganize for  the  war.  Various  war  agencies  have 
made  use  of  existing  educational  organizations  for 
recruiting,  for  the  Red  Cross,  for  Liberty  bonds, 
but  education  has  not  organized  herself  for  her 
own  no  less  important  work. 

It  is  time  that  we  were  finding  answers  to  the 
question  whether  the  colleges  cannot  subordinate 
institutionalism  to  the  common  welfare  without 
sacrificing  that  characteristic  college  institution- 
alism which  is  one  of  the  richest  possessions  of  the 
American  people  and  which  encourages  so  much 
loyalty  and  self-sacrificing  devotion.  Whether 
there  is  not  perhaps  some  constructive  program 
open  to  the  colleges  which  shall  be  neither  the  road 
of  the  department  store  nor  the  road  of  the  rail- 
road, but  which  shall  make  good  our  boast  that 
education  marches  in  the  van  of  evolution,  and  is 
the  first  to  adapt  itself  to  new  conditions. 

It  is  clear  enough  what  we  have  to  expect  in  the 
next  two  or  three  years  if  the  war  continues  and 
the  colleges  are  left  each  to  do  the  best  that  it  can 
for  itself.  We  all  know  the  sjmiptoms  to  which  I 
have  referred.  The  entrance  requirements  will  be 
less  rigidly  enforced,  free  rooms  will  be  offered  in 
empty  dormitories,  college  fees  will  be  cut,  the  col- 
lege year  will  be  shortened,  degrees  will  be  offered 
in  three  years  instead  of  four,  instructors  will  be 
enticed  by  larger  salaries,  more  money  will  be 
spent  on  advertising  and  promotion.     Not  only 

136 


As  a  War  Measure 

will  the  colleges  be  shorn  of  their  young  men,  but 
the  few  that  remain  will  be  secured  at  such  a 
heavy  cost,  and  at  the  price  of  such  inducements, 
as  not  only  to  empty  the  treasury,  but  to  pervert 
the  relation  of  teacher  and  student. 

The  colleges,  however,  are  not  blind  to  the  les- 
sons taught  by  the  Eed  Cross  and  Y,  M.  C.  A.  cam- 
paigns. It  is  evident  that  during  the  war  the  most 
effective  appeals  will  be  those  which  are  nation- 
wide. If  money  is  to  be  secured  for  education 
there  must  be  some  way  of  driving  home  the  truth 
that  education,  even  though  represented  by  a  mul- 
tiplicity of  institutions,  is  national  in  its  scope  and 
purpose.  Neither  are  the  colleges  blind  to  the 
economies  which  are  being  effected  in  so  many 
directions.  If  non-essential  industries  must  shut 
down  for  lack  of  fuel,  it  is  evident  that  non-essen- 
tial college  buildings  will  have  to  close  for  lack  of 
fuel.  It  has  even  been  suggested  that  December, 
January  and  February  be  taken  for  vacation  in- 
stead of  June,  July  and  August.  If  the  Standard 
Oil  companies  have  to  discontinue  dividend  notices 
to  stockholders  because  of  the  increase  in  the  cost 
of  postage,  it  is  evident  that  colleges  must  econo- 
mize even  in  3-cent  stamps.  If  women  are  to  re- 
place men  on  street  cars  and  elevators,  on  farms 
and  in  munition  factories,  it  will  not  be  strange  if 
they  replace  men  to  some  extent  as  instructors  in 
laboratories  and  class  rooms.  If  college  instruc- 
tors and  technical  men  continue  to  be  drafted  for 
government  service,  it  is  evident  that  the  few  that 
are  left  will  have  to  teach  overtime — labor  union 

137 


Pooling  of  College  Interests 

rules  to  the  contrary  notwithstanding.  There  are, 
it  is  true,  serious  difficulties  in  the  way  of  pooling 
interests.  It  is  comparatively  easy  to  pool  rail- 
road interests  when  there  is  more  than  enough 
traffic  to  go  round,  and  every  track  is  full,  because 
then  every  facility  can  be  used  to  its  utmost.  It 
would  be  a  more  difficult  matter  to  pool  depart- 
ment store  interests  in  the  face  of  a  shrinking 
market,  because  there  is  not  enough  to  go  around, 
and  whatever  the  division  everybody  would  be  dis- 
satisfied. In  education  the  shrinkage  has  been 
even  greater,  and  will  be  greater  still  in  each  suc- 
ceeding year.  So  that  any  pooling  of  the  traffic 
would  still  leave  the  educational  facilities  in  a  cer- 
tain measure  unused.  If  you  have  a  large  roast 
of  beef  it  is  a  relatively  easy  matter  to  carve  it 
on  the  table,  but  if  it  is  a  duck,  and  a  very  thin 
one  at  that,  there  is  a  great  advantage  in  individ- 
ual service.  I  don't  know  how  the  professors  feel, 
but  I  imagine  the  college  presidents  would  be  quite 
ready  to  accept,  like  the  railroads,  a  government 
administrator  for  the  period  of  the  war,  if  like  the 
railroads  the  colleges  could  be  guaranteed  a  net 
income  equal  to  that  of  the  last  three  years.  The 
Supreme  Court,  however,  has  not  yet  included  edu- 
cation within  that  very  elastic  phrase  "commerce 
between  the  states,"  and  even  in  war  time  the 
Federal  Government  will  probably  not  venture  to 
do  for  education  what  it  has  done  for  the  railroads. 
If,  therefore,  the  problem  is  to  be  satisfactorily 
solved,  it  must  be  divided  into  two  parts.  First, 
the  coordination  of  the  war  demands  of  the  Gov- 

138 


As  a  War  Measure 

ernment  upon  education,  which  can  be  effected  by 
the  appointment  of  an  educational  administrator 
at  Washington,  and  second,  the  coordination  of 
the  efforts  of  American  colleges  and  universities 
so  that  they  may  efficiently  perform  their  duty  in 
the  present  crisis. 

You  are  all  familiar  with  the  various  attempts 
made  within  the  past  year  at  Washington  to  secure 
the  cooperation  of  education  for  the  war.  An 
effort  to  secure  enlargement  of  the  powers  and 
functions  of  the  Bureau  of  Education,  the  revival 
of  the  plan  to  make  education  a  separate  depart- 
ment with  a  seat  in  the  Cabinet,  seems  to  be  still 
stranded  on  the  shoal  of  Congressional  opposition. 
In  the  advisory  commission  of  the  Council  of  Na- 
tional Defense  education  was  tacked  on  to  engi- 
neering as  an  afterthought,  and  Dr.  Godfrey  has 
struggled  heroically  to  span  the  two  great  fields  as 
a  Colossus  of  Rhodes.  A  good  many  cargoes,  as 
you  know,  have  passed  between  his  legs  in  the  last 
two  months.  Dean  McClelland  and  the  Intercol- 
legiate Intelligence  Bureau  have  made  some  con- 
tribution to  the  problems  of  personnel  and  still 
maintain  a  somewhat  precarious  foot-hold  in  the 
scheme  of  things.  Now  comes  the  Federal  Board 
for  Vocational  Education,  and  because  they  hap- 
pen to  have  some  money  to  spend  think  they  are 
fitted  to  serve  the  Government  as  intermediary  be- 
tween the  Government  and  education,  not  only  in 
the  field  for  which  they  were  created  and  to  which 
their  expenditures  must  by  law  be  restricted,  but 
in  other  fields  as  well,  and  while  they  grasp  for 

139 


Pooling  of  College  Interests 

higher  education  they  fail  to  serve  their  ovm  par- 
ticular field,  and  the  Shipping  Board  and  the  De- 
partment of  Labor,  also  having  some  spare  cash, 
start  out  on  their  own  account  in  the  fields  of 
secondary  vocational  education. 

What  the  surgeon-general  can  get  in  the  way  of 
education  for  his  recruits,  the  chief  engineer  is 
finally  convinced  is  good  for  his  division,  and  what 
is  good  for  the  chief  engineer  is  good  for  the  chief 
signal  officer,  and  what  is  good  for  them  is  good 
for  the  quartermaster  and  the  ordnance  depart- 
ment, and  so  education,  ready  to  serve,  but  with 
no  representative  with  standing  or  authority  on 
a  par  with  that  of  a  Secretary  of  War  or  Secretary 
of  the  Navy,  with  no  priority  board  chairman,  with 
no  railroad  director  or  administrator,  becomes 
servant  to  all,  and  is  expected  to  serve  not  two 
masters,  but  certainly  seven  with  all  the  confusion 
and  uncertainty  therein  involved.  It  is  rumored 
that  the  Department  of  War  wants  an  educational 
director  on  its  staff,  to  take  over,  not  only  the  edu- 
cational activities  of  cantonments,  but  all  ques- 
tions in  which  the  Department  of  War  and  the  col- 
leges are  concerned.  But,  of  course,  the  educa- 
tional director  of  the  War  Department  would  not 
know  what  the  Na\y  educational  director  was 
about  to  propose,  much  less  what  the  Federal 
Board  of  Vocational  Education,  the  Committee  on 
Engineering  and  Education  of  the  Advisory  Com- 
mission of  the  Council  of  National  Defense,  or  the 
departments  of  Labor,  Agriculture  and  the  Inte- 
rior had  on  the  slate. 

140 


As  a  War  Measure 

It  is  evident  that  the  necessities  of  war  require, 
not  only  some  kind  of  pooling  of  educational  inter- 
ests, but  some  kind  of  an  administrator  of  educa- 
tion at  Washington  to  whom  the  various  govern- 
mental departments  can  present  their  educational 
needs,  and  where  the  various  demands  on  the  edu- 
cational resources  of  the  country  can  be  coordi- 
nated. I  propose,  therefore,  an  administrator  of 
education,  to  rank  with  the  administrator  of  food 
and  the  administrator  of  coal,  and  to  occupy  a  seat 
in  the  "War  Council. 

Not  only  is  there  need,  however,  of  coordination 
in  education  from  the  standpoint  of  the  govern- 
ment's war  needs,  but  there  is  also  need  of  coordi- 
nation of  educational  efforts  on  the  part  of  the  in- 
stitutions for  themselves.  Everywhere  in  the  edu- 
cational world  is  felt  the  need  of  some  machinery 
to  voice  the  educational  mind,  to  act  for  the  educa- 
tional will,  and  to  beg  for  the  educational  purse. 
Various  suggestions  have  already  been  made  for 
meeting  this  need.  It  is  a  good  rule  in  war  time, 
whenever  possible,  to  convert  to  war  uses  whatever 
structure  or  organization  is  at  hand,  and  it  may 
be  that  this  Association  of  American  Colleges 
under  the  enlightened  leadership  of  Dr.  Kelly,  can 
organize  the  War  Board  that  w^e  need,  or  if  not 
this  association  alone,  perhaps  this  association 
with  representatives  of  other  similar  organiza- 
tions, such  as  the  Association  of  American  Univer- 
sities, Association  of  State  Universities,  etc., 
might  organize  such  a  board.  This  board  ought  to 
represent  the  colleges  as  distinct  from  the  Govern- 

141 


Pooling  of  College  Interests 

ment,  though  in  hearty  sympathy  and  cooperation 
Avith  it.  It  ought  to  have  national  representatives 
at  Washington  to  give  effective  expression  to  any 
questions  of  national  policy  upon  which  the  organ- 
izations represented  may  agree.  The  National 
Education  Association  has  recently  opened  a  secre- 
tary's  office  in  Washington,  making  a  small  but 
wise  beginning  in  this  direction  for  the  public 
school  interests.  Higher  education  ought,  par- 
ticularly, to  be  heard  speaking  with  no  uncertain 
voice  when  the  question  of  lowering  the  draft  age 
comes  before  Congress — it  ought  to  be  heard 
speaking  with  no  uncertain  voice  when  questions 
of  taxing  legacies  to  colleges  come  before  Congress 
— it  ought  to  have  an  official  representative  to 
speak  for  education  when  a  plan  is  being  worked 
out  for  universal  military  training.  In  a  word, 
higher  education  needs  a  national  council  and  na- 
tional officials  to  make  effective  their  point  of 
view,  enlarge  their  opportunities  for  service,  se- 
cure appropriate  legislation,  mold  public  opinion 
and  secure  an  adequate  share  of  financial  support. 
Such  a  War  Board  should  have  at  least  seven 
bureaus :  A  Bureau  of  Propaganda,  analogous  to 
that  undertaken  by  Sir  Gilbert  Parker  and  Pro- 
fessor McNeill  Dixon,  of  Glasgow;  a  Bureau  of 
Legislation  to  guard  educational  interests  in  Con- 
gress ;  a  Bureau  of  International  Relations  to  take 
up  educational  questions  which  affect  our  allies  as 
well  as  ourselves ;  a  Bureau  of  Personnel  to  make 
sure  that  every  teacher  in  the  present  emergency 
is  being  used  to  the  best  advantage ;  a  Bureau  of 

142 


As  a  War  Measure 

Promotion  to  dream  dreams  and  see  visions  for 
American  education  and  to  bring  them  to  the  atten- 
tion of  the  American  people,  and  a  Bureau  of 
Finance  to  do  for  education  on  a  large  scale  what 
the  national  boards  have  been  able  to  do  for  the 
Red  Cross  and  the  Young  Men's  Christian  Asso- 
ciation. If  the  continuance  of  education  is  a  pa- 
triotic service  we  must  see  too  that  it  secures 
recognition  as  such,  by  such  devices  of  iron 
crosses,  uniforms,  service  stripes  and  titles,  of  red 
and  blue  triangles  and  crosses,  as  appeal  to  the 
imagination  of  democracy.  The  patriotism  of  the 
marine  who  guards  the  sugar  plantation  in  Cuba, 
of  the  farmer  who  plants  potatoes,  of  the  college 
professor  who  teaches  French  to  the  soldier,  is 
seen  and  applauded.  The  medical  scientist  wears 
his  reserve  officer's  uniform  in  the  laboratory,  but 
the  uniforms  of  teachers  even  in  the  ground 
schools  of  aviation  have  recently  been  taken  away 
from  them.  I  do  not  say  that  America  has  yet 
reached  the  point  where  either  a  uniform  or  a 
title  is  needed  to  make  the  citizen  a  servant  of  the 
nation,  but  if  these  things  are  needed  for  the  popu- 
lar imagination,  American  teachers  must  have 
them. 

We  must  organize  joint  campaigns  to  increase 
the  supply  of  students,  as  otherwise  any  attempt 
on  the  part  of  the  college  to  secure  students  will 
be  regarded  as  a  selfish  attempt  for  the  benefit  of 
the  institution,  and  at  the  expense  of  the  war.  We 
must  encourage  wherever  possible  the  differentia- 
tion of  functions  and  make  it  easy  for  competing 

143 


Pooling  of  College  Interests 

institutions  to  give  up  to  each  other  certain  fields 
of  instruction.  If  the  war  continues  and  the  sup- 
ply of  instructors  decreases  more  rapidly  than  the 
number  of  students,  we  must  devise  some  method 
by  which  specialists  can  give  half  of  their  time 
to  one  institution  and  half  to  another.  AVe  must 
establish  some  kind  of  a  labor  exchange,  with 
which  perhaps  the  Carnegie  Foundation  would  co- 
operate to  insure  the  most  efficient  use  of  all  the 
teachers  available.  We  must  adopt  a  code  of  pro- 
fessional ethics  which  will  discourage  the  calling 
of  members  of  college  faculties  from  one  institu- 
tion to  another  on  short  notice  in  the  midst  of  the 
term  by  offers  of  higher  salary.  Finally,  we  must 
appoint  a  committee  to  consider  how  the  deficits 
of  the  colleges  in  this  Association,  caused  by  the 
war,  are  to  be  financed  as  a  matter  of  general 
national  policy.  With  the  immense  expansion  of 
governmental  activity,  due  to  the  war,  there  will 
be  a  strong  disposition  to  have  the  Government 
control  the  industries  of  the  country  and  pay  all 
bills.  It  is  evident  that  the  salvation  of  the  insti- 
tutions represented  in  this  Association  does  not  lie 
in  that  direction,  but  rather  in  the  direction  of  the 
national  campaigns  of  the  Red  Cross  and  the  Y.  M. 
C.  A.,  in  nation-w^ide  and  universal  appeals.  So 
far  as  I  know,  there  has  never  been  in  America 
a  joint  meeting  of  any  kind  of  college  trustees. 
With  the  readiness  of  business  men  to  give  their 
services  to  national  movements  connected  with  the 
war,  it  is  conceivable  that  even  college  trustees 
might  be  brought  together  for  action.     The  Ger- 

144 


As  a  War  Measure 

man  General  von  Ludendorff  made  a  remark  apro- 
pos of  the  recent  War  Council  in  Paris  that ' '  when 
nations  were  at  their  wits'  ends  they  called  a 
War  Council. ' '  It  was  a  stinging  challenge  from 
autocracy  to  democracy.  We  have  given  individ- 
ualism free  play  in  America,  and  we  all  admire 
what  private  initiative  has  been  able  to  do,  not 
only  in  building  its  own  institutions  but  in  creat- 
ing a  faith  in  education  in  the  American  people 
which  has  made  possible  education  through  the 
state  with  popular  approval  and  support.  We 
must  now  show  ourselves  farsighted  and  broad 
enough  to  again  blaze  a  new  path  and  point  the 
way  to  the  American  people  for  a  constructive  war 
program  for  American  education,  by  a  willingness 
to  submerge  the  individual  glory  of  our  institu- 
tions in  a  common  pool  for  the  public  welfare. 


HS 


FEDERAL  LEADERSHIP  IN  EDUCATION 

ONLY  a  year  ago  we  were  quite  unanimous  in 
the  opinion  that  the  colleges  needed,  that  the 
country  needed,  some  national  agency  to  coordin- 
ate American  education  and  to  increase  the  effec- 
tiveness of  college  service  in  the  winning  of  the 
war. 

We  talked  of  a  national  administrator  of  edu- 
cation, and  we  went  from  the  meeting  of  this  as- 
sociation to  other  conferences  here  and  in  Wash- 
ington, and  organized  an  Association  of  National 
Education  Associations  which  has  come  to  be 
kno\vn  as  the  American  Council  on  Education. 
We  went  further,  and  carried  to  the  Senate,  to  the 
House  and  to  the  White  House,  a  report  of  what 
we  understood  to  be  the  conviction  of  the  educa- 
tional forces  of  America  that  education  was  not 
properly  represented  in  the  national  councils,  that 
American  education  had  no  international  voice, 
much  less  an  international  hand  or  pocketbook. 

On  January  31,  1918,  we  presented  to  Senator 
Hoke  Smith,  Chairman  of  the  Senate's  Committee 
on  Education,  a  letter  from  which  I  will  quote 
a  paragraph  to  show  that  our  thought  went  out 
beyond  war  time.     The  letter  said : 

*  *  The  opportunity  is  before  us  of  cooperating  in 


Address  before  the  Association  of  American  Colleges,  Chicago, 
January,  1919. 

146 


Federal  Leadership  in  Education 

large  educational  undertakings  with  France,  Eng- 
land and  Italy  and  of  helping  in  the  educational 
reorganization  of  Russia,  and  the  educational 
awakening  of  China.  Our  educational  relation- 
ships with  the  South  American  republics  also  are 
sure  to  grow  rapidly  in  extent  and  in  importance. 
We  must  act  in  all  these  matters  as  a  nation  and 
not  as  separate  and  individual  states.  While  leav- 
ing to  the  states  all  the  old  measure  of  autonomy 
in  their  own  educational  systems,  it  will  be  neces- 
sary to  provide  some  central  and  general  agency 
through  which  they  may  all  express  themselves 
in  policies  which  are  either  national  or  interna- 
tional in  scope. 

''Since  education  is  universally  recognized  as 
the  first  corollary  of  democracy,  it  seems  incon- 
gruous that  it  should  not  be  recognized  as  of  equal 
rank  in  the  councils  of  the  nation,  with  that  ac- 
corded Commerce,  Labor  and  Agriculture,  all  of 
which  have  representatives  in  the  President's 
cabinet.  .  .  .  The  creation  of  a  Department  of 
Education  would  in  our  judgment  unify,  direct 
and  stimulate  effort,  and  would  give  just  recog- 
nition to  the  dignity  and  practical  importance  of 
Education  in  the  national  life.  It  would  also 
establish  a  governmental  agency  for  dealing  with 
international  educational  problems  of  a  rank  co- 
ordinate with  the  educational  departments  of  the 
majority  of  the  great  nations  with  w^hich  we  shall 
be  dealing." 

To-day,  conditions  are  very  different  from  what 
they  were  last  year  at  this  time.    We  were  sure, 

H7 


Federal  Leadership  in  Education 

then,  that  we  needed  not  only  a  Federal  Leader, 
but  even  a  Federal  Administrator.  To-day  we 
are  not  so  sure.  The  pendulum  has  started  on 
the  return  swing.  We  have  had  a  taste  of  military 
dictation  and  it  has  left  a  bad  flavor  in  our  mouths. 
I  understand  that  the  only  time  the  faculty  of  the 
University  of  Chicago  ever  voted  unanimously  on 
any  subject  was  when  they  voted  recently  against 
continuance  of  military  training  in  any  form. 
The  attempt  to  retain  control  of  railroads,  the  ar- 
bitrary seizure  of  telephone  and  telegraph  lines 
when  the  war  was  over,  the  frightful  waste  of 
bureaucratic  circumlocution  and  stupidity,  the  ab- 
sence in  American  official  circles  of  that  sense  of 
fair  play  which  is  so  characteristic  of  better 
Americans  in  their  private  professional  and  busi- 
ness life,  the  excesses  and  blind  tyranny,  the  sloth 
and  greed  of  Bolsheviki  and  Soldiers  and  Work- 
men's Councils  abroad,  all  these  things  make  us 
skeptical  as  to  the  msdom  of  casting  the  Federal 
Government  for  any  more  important  role  in  the 
great  drama  of  ''Education  for  a  Democratic 
World,"  upon  which  the  curtain  of  a  new  era  is 
about  to  rise. 

There  must,  therefore,  be  cogent  reasons  for 
the  step  if  it  is  to  win  our  adherence  and  support. 
Arguments  which  will  bear  rough  matter-of-fact 
handling.  Ends  which  looked  at  in  any  light  or 
from  any  angle  will  still  appear  desirable. 

For  myself,  I  have  reexamined  in  the  light  of 
the  year's  experience  and  changes,  all  the  argu- 
ments which  we  advanced  a  year  ago  in  the  letter 

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Federal  Leadership  in  Education 

to  Senator  Smith  and  I  am  as  ready  to  subscribe 
to  that  letter  as  a  declaration  of  faith  to-day  as  I 
was  a  year  ago. 

Like  all  great  reforms  we  mistrust  the  proposal 
because  of  its  very  simplicity  and  obviousness. 
To  the  question,  Is  Education  a  national  interest 
comparable  in  importance  to  agriculture,  com- 
merce, labor? — the  press,  the  trade-unions,  the 
man  in  the  street,  are  prepared  to  give  an  affirma- 
tive answer.  The  truth  of  the  matter  is,  not  that 
we  don't  recognize  the  significance  of  education 
in  our  national  life  but  that  we  are  all  so  much 
interested  in  education  in  America,  that  we  all 
want  to  have  a  hand  in  it,  and  hesitate  to  set  up 
a  department,  and  say  Education  belongs  particu- 
larly to  this  jurisdiction.  Everybody  wants  to 
educate.  Agriculture  wants  to  teach,  Commerce 
wants  to  teach,  the  Treasury  wknts  to  teach,  the 
Post  Office  wants  to  teach.  Labor  wants  to  teach, 
the  White  House  wants  to  teach,  the  little  country 
school  district  wants  to  teach  and  resents  being 
consolidated  with  a  neighboring  district,  while 
there  is  hardly  a  child  bom  who  is  not  ready  at  the 
age  of  five  to  explain  the  universe  and  direct  the 
steps  of  his  little  brother  of  three. 

If  there  is  a  stumbling  block  in  the  road  of 
Federal  Leadersliip  in  Education,  I  should  say 
it  was  not  so  much  lack  of  appreciation  of  the 
importance  of  education  in  national  life,  as  too 
widespread  appreciation  of  the  fun  of  playing 
teacher — and  too  little  appreciation  of  the  rich  re- 
wards which  com,e  to  the  teachable  spirit. 

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Federal  Leadership  in  Education 

You  are  all  familiar  enough  with  the  subject 
to  marshal  each  the  arguments  pro  and  con  for 
himself.  The  arguments  which  I  find  most  cogent 
naturally  group  themselves  for  me  under  three 
heads : 

(1)  The  International  Argument 

(2)  The  National  Ideal  Argument 
(o)   The  Argument  of  Convenience. 

The  International  Argume;it  is  simply  the  argu- 
ment applied  to  education,  which  gave  us  in  the 
first  place  our  Union  of  States.  If  there  had  been 
no  international  problems,  no  problems  of  com- 
merce or  war  wdth  other  nations,  we  should  prob- 
ably never  have  had  any  Federal  Government. 
International  relationships  created  the  Federal 
Government.  Up  to  this  time  our  international 
relationships  in  education,  in  the  world  of  science 
and  letters,  have  been  of  minor  importance.  Now 
they  are  assuming  a  place  of  primary  importance. 
If  national  ambitions  are  to  be  turned  from  ag- 
grandizement by  war,  to  the  satisfaction  of  hu- 
man needs  and  the  improvement  of  the  individual, 
then  education,  science  and  letters,  must  come  to 
constitute  a  very  large  part  of  the  stuff  of  inter- 
national intercourse.  If  war  is  to  be  impossible 
in  the  future,  then  we  w^ant  educational  attaches, 
as  our  eyes  and  ears  and  mouthpieces,  at  our  for- 
eign legations,  as  well  as  militant  or  naval  at- 
taches and  such  other  relics  of  a  past  age. 

And  when  the  United  States  officially  invites  a 
foreign  educational  mission  to  visit  this  country, 
we  want  it  arranged  so  that  President  Cowling 

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Federal  Leadership  in  Education 

and  Professor  Schofield  will  not  have  to  pledge 
their  Carnegie  pensions  as  security  for  the  travel- 
ing expenses  of  the  distinguished  visitors,  because 
the  great  United  States,  however  friendly  it  may 
feel,  however  much  it  may  desire  closer  relation- 
ships, is  deaf  and  dumb  and  a  penniless  beggar 
when  it  tries  to  assume  the  role  of  International 
Educational  Host. 

The  second  group  of  arguments  I  call  the  Argu- 
ment of  the  National  Ideal.  This  is  the  argument 
woven  from  the  stuff  that  dreams  are  made  of, 
the  lightest,  airiest,  toughest,  most  inescapable 
stuff  we  know.  In  America  we  have  always  had 
a  right  to  make  our  state  in  our  own  image.  We 
have  never  been  taught  to  believe  that  the  state 
was  a  ready  made  institution  imposed  on  us  by 
God.  The  writers  of  our  Declaration  of  Inde- 
pendence and  of  our  Constitution  took  care  that 
we  should  be  constantly  reminded  that  our  state 
was  a  device  for  human  needs  made  for  man,  not 
man  for  the  state,  so  that  Man  was  Lord  also  of 
the  state  and  could  discard  any  particular  form  if 
it  failed  to  work. 

And  many  of  us,  as  we  picture  to  ourselves  our 
ideal  state,  are  not  satisfied  that  it  shall  be  a  state 
of  merely  soldiers  and  workmen's  councils,  or  even 
a  state  merely  of  successful  business  men,  and 
farmers,  capitalists  and  trades-unionists.  The 
means  to  life  have  somehow  in  America  usurped 
the  place  of  life  itself  in  our  daily  life  as  well  as 
in  our  governmental  organization,  and  we  feel  that 
one  step  in  correcting  this  disorder  and  restoring 

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Federal  Leadership  in  Education 

a  proper  ompliasis  will  be  to  give  to  education,  to 
science,  art  and  philosophy,  at  least  equal  recog- 
nition with  commerce  and  agriculture  in  the 
scheme  of  things  at  Washington. 

Third,  there  is  the  group  of  arguments  which 
we  may  call  the  Argument  for  Convenience  or  Effi- 
ciency, argiiments  w^hich  are  matter  of  fact,  and 
as  easily  demonstratable  by  experiment,  as  the 
argument  from  the  National  Ideal  is  cobwebby  and 
illusive.  Under  this  head  I  would  group  all  the 
arguments  which  demand  a  Department  of  Educa- 
tion because  there  are  specific  tasks  which  we  w^ant 
done  and  we  find  w^e  have  no  machine  guaranteed 
to  do  them  easily,  promptly  and  inexpensively. 

While  we  may  agree  fairly  well  on  the  first  two 
arguments  and  the  conclusion  w^hich  they  will  sup- 
port, we  are  likely  to  part  company  when  we  come 
to  this  third  group  of  arguments.  Naturally  in  a 
great  country  like  ours  one  set  of  people  want  one 
thing  done,  another  another  thing.  If  a  machine 
is  to  be  set  up,  some  say  it  must  be  a  churn  to 
make  butter,  others,  a  sewing  machine,  others  a 
pump,  others  an  automobile  for  travel,  others  a 
phonograph,  others  a  printing  press.  Probably 
we  need  all  of  them  if  our  farm  is  to  be  completely 
equipped,  but  let  us  begin  either  by  installing  an 
electric  wire  with  direct  connections  with  the  pub- 
lic treasur}^  or  else  a  gas  engine  with  a  good  fat 
appropriation  barrel  of  oil,  and  having  made  sure 
of  the  supply  of  power  we  can  hitch  it  up  to  any 
machine  we  may  thereafter  acquire  for  a  specific 
need.     If  such  a  plan  is  too  ideal,  let  us  compro- 

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Federal  Leadership  in  Education 

mise  on  some  sort  of  a  self-starting  automobile  in 
which  we  shall  be  able  to  travel  not  only,  but 
which  we  can  block  up  in  the  barn  in  the  winter 
months  and  put  to  running  the  threshing  machine, 
or  to  sawing  wood. 

In  this  article  I  cannot  go  further  than  indi- 
cate the  lines  of  argument.  We  hope  the  whole 
nation  will  turn  itself  into  a  debating  society,  and 
that  the  national  policy  will  follow  what  proves 
to  be  the  soundest  argument.  We  must  not  be 
discouraged  if  the  movement  takes  time.  Mrs. 
Humphry  Ward  has  recently  claimed  that  the 
Fisher  Education  Act  of  last  August,  England's 
notable  contribution  to  educational  reconstruction, 
is  for  the  most  part  simply  an  embodiment  of  the 
ideas  of  her  Uncle  Matthew  Arnold,  who  held  the 
office  of  Inspector  of  Schools  from  1851  to  1886. 
In  America  twenty-five  years  of  agitation  were 
required  to  produce  the  present  Bureau  and  fifty 
years  more  have  not  been  long  enough  to  con\dnce 
Congress  of  its  right  to  larger  appropriations. 
But  the  pace  is  quickening  and  the  new  Depart- 
ment will  be  ready  for  America  when  America  is 
ready  to  use  it. 

In  the  meantime  what  are  the  practical  steps 
that  are  being  taken  toward  the  desired  end?  I 
have  made  an  analysis  of  the  legislation  affecting 
education  proposed  during  the  present  Congress. 
It  was  an  illuminating  and  surprising  study. 
Apart  from  the  legislation  dealing  with  education 
in  the  District  of  Columbia  or  other  direct  wards 
of  Congress  there  have  been  about  sixty  different 

153 


Federal  Leadership  in  Education 

bills  introduced  during  the  65th  Congress  appro- 
priating some  two  or  three  hundred  million  dollars 
for  education.  These  classify  themselves  gener- 
ally under  four  heads : 

(1)  General  legislation  affecting  the  organi- 
zation and  administration  of  federal  educa- 
tion. 

(2)  Legislation  granting  federal  aid  to  engi- 
neering, agricultural  and  vocational  education, 
three  branches  of  education  which  have  already 
received  definite  federal  recognition. 

(3)  Legislation  providing  for  education  in 
other  special  directions  such  as  Americanization, 
illiteracy,  public  health,  deaf  and  dumb,  music,  etc. 
etc. 

(4)  Legislation  providing  federal  financial  aid 
for  particular  institutions. 

A  score  of  bills  belong  to  the  last  group  and  ap- 
propriate various  amounts  varying  from  the  seven 
million  acres  to  be  given  the  schools  of  Nevada 
to  the  reduced  carfare  which  is  to  be  allowed  a 
student  from  any  part  of  the  United  States  who 
studies  in  Washington. 

A  score  of  bills  belong  to  the  third  class  and 
show  immense  originality  and  variety,  from  the 
bill  providing  for  the  establishment  of  a  National 
Conservatory  of  Music  and  Art  and  prescribing 
how  many  rooms  there  shall  be  in  each  building 
and  how  many  pupils  each  room  shall  hold,  to  the 
bill  providing  for  investigating  and  teaching  the 
science  and  art  of  manufacturing  and  using  oleo- 
margarine and  providing  that  oleo  may  be  used 

if4 


Federal  Leadership  in  Education 

free  from  tax  in  college  dining  halls.  Here  also 
are  the  bills  providing  for  a  Federal  Correspon- 
dence School,  a  Federal  Board  for  Physical  Cul- 
ture, and  for  a  Bureau  in  the  Department  of  Labor 
which  shall  give  instruction  in  hygiene  of  mater- 
nity and  infancy. 

In  the  second  group  there  are  only  half  as  many 
bills  but  they  make  up  for  their  small  number 
by  the  huge  size  of  the  proposed  appropriations. 
Here  are  the  bills  providing  millions  for  voca- 
tional rehabilitation  of  wounded  soldiers,  estab- 
lishing schools  and  departments  of  mining,  estab- 
lishing engineering  experiment  stations  and  pro- 
viding for  a  National  Board  of  Engineering  and 
Industrial  Research,  which  may  deal  with  any- 
thing in  heaven  above,  in  the  earth  beneath,  or  in 
the  waters  under  the  earth  which  bears  on  the 
welfare  of  the  people  of  the  United  States. 

Finally,  in  the  first  group  fall  the  bills  in  which 
we  are  particularly  interested  at  this  time,  and  for 
which  the  bills  in  the  other  groups  illustrate  the 
need  and  form  one  of  the  most  obvious  arguments. 
In  the  first  group  there  are  a  number  of  war  bills 
dealing  with  the  display  of  the  flag,  the  teaching 
of  German,  military  training  of  various  degrees 
and  kinds.  Leaving  these  aside  there  are  three  or 
four  bills  which  bear  directly  on  the  question  in 
hand. 

There  is  first  Mr.  Husted's  bill  providing  for  a 
commission  of  five  persons  to  be  appointed  by  the 
President  to  inquire  into  the  condition  of  public 
education  in  the  several  States  and  to  recommend 

^5S 


Federal  Leadership  in  Education 

such  measures  as  it  may  deem  advisable  for  the 
improvement  of  the  same,  the  commission  to  re- 
port on  the  following  subjects  particularly:  the 
desirability  of  establishing  a  uniform  system  of 
public  education  throughout  the  United  States 
under  federal  regulation  and  control;  the  advan- 
tages, if  any,  to  be  secured  through  federal  legis- 
lation of  uniform  application  throughout  the 
United  States;  providing  for  compulsory  educa- 
tion, registration  of  children,  inspection  of  schools, 
examination  and  licensing  of  public  school  teachers 
and  supervision  of  teaching;  the  desirability  of 
establishing  a  national  system  of  military  educa- 
tion and  training;  the  desirability  of  providing 
optional  subjects  in  educational  courses  in  col- 
leges and  universities  and  the  extent,  if  any,  to 
which  such  selection  should  be  permitted,  to- 
gether with  such  constitutional  amendment  or 
legislation  as  may  be  necessary  to  carry  the  recom- 
mendations into  effect. 

The  bill  illustrates  very  well  what  Dr.  Kandel 
has  so  clearly  pointed  out  in  his  study  of  the  Land 
Grant  Acts,  namely  how  little  any  one  conver- 
sant with  education  has  to  do  with  federal  legisla- 
tion, actual  or  proposed,  on  education.  A  consti- 
tutional amendment  to  determine  whether  a  sopho- 
more might  have  two  or  three  electives  in  col- 
lege, would  be  federal  leadership  indeed. 

Then  there  is  Mr.  Sears'  bill  providing  seventy- 
five  million  annually  for  scholarships  in  State  Uni- 
versities and  creating  a  Federal  Board  for  Mili- 
tary Training;  and  various  other  plans  for  mili- 

156 


Federal  Leadership  in  Education 

tary  colleges,  in  the  various  States  at  federal  ex- 
pense. 

There  is  Mr.  Fess'  bill  to  create  a  National 
University  open  only  to  those  holding  Masters 
degrees  and  giving  no  degrees  itself,  the  Uni- 
versity to  be  governed  by  a  Board  of  thirteen  with 
the  Commissioner  of  Education,  Chairman,  and  by 
an  Advisory  Council  made  up  of  the  State  Uni- 
versity presidents. 

Then  there  is  a  bill  which  closely  affects  all  col- 
lege presidents,  because  it  provides  that  you  can- 
not beg  for  your  college  without  a  license  which 
you  are  to  get  from  the  Commissioner  of  Edu- 
cation by  paying  $2.50,  and  which  is  revokable  at 
his  pleasure.  What  a  simple  device  that  is  to 
place  all  American  education  under  the  thumb  of 
the  Commissioner  of  Education,  because  of  course 
if  a  college  president  could  not  beg,  there  would 
be  no  excuse  for  his  existence. 

And  finally,  there  is  Mr.  Owen's  bill  creating 
a  Department  of  Education  with  a  secretary  with 
a  salary  of  $12,000  and  an  assistant  secretary  at 
$6,000;  and  Senator  Smith's  N.E.A.  omnibus  bill 
which  not  only  creates  a  Department  of  Educa- 
tion, and  permits  the  President  to  transfer  to  the 
new  Department  such  agencies  of  Government  be- 
sides the  Bureau  of  Education  as  he  may  deem 
wise,  but  which  seeks  to  marshal  various  powerful 
forces  behind  the  bill,  by  consolidating  with  it, 
the  various  bills  for  Americanization,  improve- 
ment of  Rural  Schools,  abolition  of  illiteracy,  phy- 
sical training,  and  elevation  of  the  teaching  pro- 

157 


Federal  Leadership  in  Education 

fession,  and  appropriating  a  round  comfortable 
hundred  million  for  the  purpose. 

Political  expediency  may  make  it  desirable  to 
secure  the  support  of  powerful  lobbying  interests 
in  this  way,  but  I  am  of  the  opinion  that  just  as 
the  attempt  to  secure  a  Department  of  Education 
a  few  years  ago  failed  when  promoted  by  the 
Sage  Foundation  which  had  a  special  interest 
along  the  lines  of  child  welfare,  so  the  present  at- 
tempt to  place  education  where  she  ought  to  be  in 
the  councils  of  the  nation  is  more  hindered  than 
helped  by  being  made  to  carry  with  it  certain 
specific  purposes  in  which  some  of  the  people  are 
interested  and  some  not,  and  regarding  which 
there  is  great  diversity  of  opinion  as  to  whether 
the  cost  should  be  borne  by  direct  or  indirect 
taxation.  The  same  objection  holds  against  the 
bill  recently  introduced  in  the  House,  which  pro- 
poses a  Department  of  Education  and  Human  Wel- 
fare, thus  saddling  education,  which  has  a  very 
definite  task  to  perform,  with  all  the  vagaries  and 
schemes  for  human  betterment  which  the  fertile 
American  imagination  can  invent. 

Of  one  thing  I  am  quite  sure  nevertheless,  and 
that  is  that  in  our  plans  for  Federal  participation 
in  Education  we  want  more  of  the  leadership  of 
ideas,  and  less  of  the  compulsion  of  cash.  The 
American  people  have  already  a  deep  distrust  of 
efforts  to  direct  moral  and  social  movements  by 
the  persuasion  of  loaves  and  fishes,  and  the  danger 
is  equally  great  and  insidious  whether  the  loaves 
and  fishes  be  in  the  hands  of  private  individuals  or 

158 


Federal  Leadership  in  Education 

in  the  hands  of  ofifice  holders.  If  the  Federal  Gov- 
ernment is  prepared  to  give  freely  to  education 
I  for  one  would  favor  receiving  it  gladly;  but  if 
the  Federal  Government  proposes  to  exact  a  price 
for  every  dollar,  then  I  say  it  is  sounder  econom- 
ics and  better  politics  for  the  States  to  apply  their 
own  money  directly  to  education  rather  than  to 
pass  it  over  to  Washington  to  be  bought  back  at 
a  price. 

In  the  Morrell  Act  the  grant  was  a  gift  practi- 
cally without  conditions.  In  the  vocational  grant, 
a  harder  bargain  is  being  attempted.  In  the 
Smith  Bill  even  the  pretense  of  free  gift  is  cast 
aside,  and  the  Federal  Government  appears 
frankly  bargaining  for  control  in  the  States  in  re- 
turn for  its  cash. 

This  is  a  fatal  defect  which  however  is  not  essen- 
tial to  the  main  purposes  of  the  bill  and  which  can 
be  remedied.  I  think,  however,  that  it  is  quite 
clear  that  if  a  change  from  State  Education  to 
Federal  Education  is  desired,  it  should  be  secured 
openly  on  its  merits  by  a  constitutional  amend- 
ment and  not  bought  by  the  operation  of  sordid 
motives. 

We  have  learned  a  good  deal  from  our  experi- 
ence with  the  S.A.T.C.  the  past  year  in  more  di- 
rections than  one.  For  one  thing  it  has  set  a  new 
high  standard  for  unselfish  cooperation  in  educa- 
tion in  the  public  service.  With  all  the  faults  of 
the  S.A.T.C.  I  think  you  will  all  agree  that  one 
of  its  great  glories  was  the  spirit  of  democratic 

159 


Federal  Leadership  in  Education 

equality  wliicli  ooiitrolled  its  administration. 
Small  and  great  were  treated  equally.  There 
was  no  respect  of  persons  and  no  suspicion  of 
service  of  any  special  interest.  If  we  could  al- 
ways have  such  enlightened  bureaucrats  we  should 
be  much  more  ready  to  place  education  in  federal 
hands.  But  with  all  its  purity  of  purpose,  the 
S.A.T.C.  experiment  demonstrated  also  that  our 
country  is  too  big  to  hope  for  prompt,  intelligent 
administration  from  a  single  center.  We  have 
come  through  the  war  I  take  it  with  a  greater 
belief  than  ever  in  the  fathers'  wisdom  in  prizing 
so  highly  local  self-government.  We  watched 
with  interest  the  advantages  of  the  local  draft 
boards  under  federal  direction  and  leadership  and 
these  lessons  will,  I  judge,  make  us  more  likely 
to  seek  to  retain  State  control  of  Education  even 
though  we  seek  to  magnify  federal  leadership  and 
make  every  effort  to  secure  for  education  better 
representation  in  the  national  councils. 

Mark  Baldwin  says, ' '  The  rank  which  the  United 
States  now  occupies  in  art,  science,  and  literature 
is  not,  by  universal  consent,  lower  than  fourth 
among  all  the  nations  of  the  world."  We  dare 
not  rest  satisfied  mth  fourth  place.  We  covet 
earnestly  the  best  gifts  for  our  beloved  land. 
We  want  first  that  our  nation  should  lead  us,  and 
then  that  it  should  lead  all  mankind  in  the  best 
things  of  the  spirit. 

Eodrigues  has  pointed  out  that  w^hile  French 
and  Americans  are  both  creative,  it  is  their  genius 

160 


Federal  Leadership  in  Education 

to  create  by  first  bringing  to  birth  the  idea,  while 
with  us  we  plunge  forward  and  act  and  the  idea 
is  born  in  the  throes  of  action. 

We  shall  probabl}^  be  true  to  our  genius  in  this 
matter  of  federal  leadership  in  education.  We 
shall  not  first  evolve  a  perfect  plan  for  a  federal 
department  and  then  make  the  Department  fit 
the  plan,  but  the  creators  among  us  will  plunge 
ahead,  give  us  some  legislation,  however  crude, 
and  as  we  act  and  move  forw^ard  and  do  something, 
a  more  perfect  conception  of  the  possibilities  of 
federal  leadership  will  emerge,  which  we  shall  all 
recognize  at  once  as  that  true  American  leadership 
of  Education  for  which  we  have  all  been  blindly 
groping. 


161 


A  NATIONAL  DEPARTMENT  OF 
EDUCATION 

THE  proposal  to  create  a  national  Depart- 
^  ment  of  Education  with  a  Secretary  of  equal 
rank  with  the  Secretary  of  Commerce  or  the  Secre- 
tary of  Agriculture,  and  entitled  to  a  seat  in  the 
President's  Cabinet,  is  not  a  new  one.  The  bill 
drawn  by  Emerson  White  and  presented  by  Gen- 
eral Garfield  at  the  close  of  the  Civil  War  pro- 
posed such  a  Department,  but  during  the  discus- 
sion in  Congress  the  Department  was  reduced  to 
the  rank  of  a  bureau  in  the  Department  of  the  In- 
terior. The  proposal,  however,  has  taken  on  new 
significance  as  a  result  of  the  radical  change  in 
our  international  policies  during  the  last  three 
years.  A  nation  which  deliberately  sought  inter- 
national isolation  had  little  need  for  a  national 
representative  of  education.  A  nation  which  as- 
sumes the  role  of  arbiter  of  the  world's  destinies 
and  judge  of  the  world's  disputes  must  give  the 
American  school  a  national  representative  so  that 
the  United  States  may  contribute  to  the  world's 
education  w^hatever  it  has  of  value,  and  learn 
from  the  school  experience  of  other  nations  all 
that  is  to  be  learned. 
It  is  not  a  question  of  placing  the  administra- 


From  The  Nation,  March  7,  1918. 

162 


A  National  Department  of  Education 

tion  of  schools  in  the  hands  of  the  national  Gov- 
ernment. No  one  wants  the  national  Government 
to  administer  the  schools,  nor  could  it  do  this 
without  a  constitutional  amendment.  It  is  not 
a  question  of  introducing  the  national  Government 
to  a  field  of  effort  which  hitherto  it  has  not  en- 
tered. Already  its  educational  activities  are 
manifold.  The  encouragement  of  colleges  for  ag- 
riculture, or  the  mechanic  arts,  the  recent  creation 
of  a  Board  for  Vocational  Education,  the  research 
activities  of  the  Bureau  of  Standards,  the  Naval 
Observatory,  the  Smithsonian  Institution,  as  well 
as  the  activities  of  the  present  Bureau  of  Educa- 
tion, testify  to  the  fact  that  the  national  Govern- 
ment has  already  entered  the  field  of  education 
and  feels  at  home  there. 

We  want  a  Department  of  Education,  not  to 
rule,  but  to  serve,  education  in  the  States.  As 
President  Wilson  said  thirty  years  ago,  * '  The  na- 
tion properly  comes  before  the  States  in  honor 
and  importance,  not  because  it  is  more  important 
than  they  are,  but  because  it  is  all-important  to 
them  and  to  the  maintenance  of  every  principle 
of  government,  which  we  have  established  and  still 
cherish.  The  national  Government  is  the  organic 
frame  of  the  States.  It  has  enabled  and  still  en- 
ables them  to  exist."  What  is  true  of  the  States 
in  their  more  general  governmental  functions  is 
true  also  of  education.  We  do  not  want  a  national 
Department  of  Education  to  supplant  or  replace 
our  State  Departments  of  Education;  we  want  it 
because  such  a  national  Department  is  all-impor- 

163 


A  National  Department  of  Education 

tant  to  them,  and  because  we  believe  education  is 
the  first  corollary  of  democracy. 

Our  forefathers,  having  suffered  from  an  ex- 
cess of  governmental  activity,  wanted  government 
a  negative  rather  than  a  positive  force  in  our 
community  life.  Accordingly,  they  withdrew  the 
whole  field  of  religion  and  religious  teaching  from 
the  territory  open  to  legislative  activity.  A  sim- 
ilar sentiment  leads  many  to  regard  with  appre- 
hension anything  which  looks  towards  greater 
governmental  activity  in  the  field  of  education. 
They  admit  the  right  of  the  national  Government 
to  step  in  and  take  charge  of  the  youth  of  the 
country  from  sixteen  to  twenty  years  of  age  to 
prepare  them  for  war,  or  so  to  order  universal 
military  training  as  to  modify  the  whole  educa- 
tional system  of  the  United  States,  so  long  as  it  is 
done  by  the  Department  of  War.  They  admit  the 
right  of  the  national  Government  to  establish  any 
schools  or  to  give  any  instruction  necessary  for 
the  conduct  of  the  present  war,  or  any  possible 
future  war,  yet  hesitate  at  the  thought  of  a 
national  Department  of  Education,  either  in  war 
or  in  peace.  They  allow  the  national  Government 
to  say  what  the  American  people  may  or  may  not 
read,  so  long  as  it  is  done  through  the  Post  Office 
Department.  They  strain  at  the  gnat  and  swallow 
the  camel.  It  is  said  that  the  hearing  of  the  blind 
is  peculiarly  acute,  that  those  who  cannot  see  or 
hear  develop  extraordinary  sensitiveness  of  touch, 
that  if  the  legs  are  cut  off,  the  arms  are  stronger. 
In  the  same  way  our  nation,  if  by  reason  of  ar- 

164 


V 

A  National  Department  of  Education 

bitrary  stricture  not  allowed  to  develop  certain 
normal  national  interests,  will  develop  others  just 
so  much  more  strongly.  If  as  a  nation  we  can  give 
expression  to  our  interest  in  agriculture,  in  com- 
merce, in  war,  in  labor,  but  not  to  our  interest  in 
education,  we  shall  become,  as  in  the  past  we  have 
shown  a  tendency  to  become,  a  nation  of  farmers 
[ind  business  men,  or  as  we  are  now  in  danger  of 
becoming,  a  nation  of  soldiers  and  workmen,  and 
our  Government,  like  Eussia's,  a  Council  of  Sol- 
diers' and  Workmen's  Delegates. 

Whether  we  like  it  or  not,  the  events  of  the  war 
have  made  us  a  world  power.  During  the  next 
hundred  years  our  international  life  will  be  more 
important  than  our  intra-national  life.  What  are 
to  be  the  interests  of  this  giant  among  nations? 
What  ends  is  our  gold  to  serve?  Into  what  are  we 
to  transmute  our  wealth  or  our  treasure?  If  we 
profess  adherence  to  the  creed  that  aggrandize- 
ment of  territory  or  power  can  no  longer  be  the 
purpose  of  national  life,  what  are  we  as  a  nation 
going  to  live  for?  The  political  philosophers  have 
thought  of  only  two  alternatives :  one,  a  good  time ; 
the  other,  improvement.  Up  to  the  present  time 
our  Government  at  Washington  is  in  the  same  mu- 
tilated condition  in  practice  as  Aristotle's  Politics 
in  theory;  in  both  the  section  dealing  with  educa- 
tion is  missing. 

But  what  specific  things,  it  is  urged,  would  be 
left  for  a  national  Department  of  Education  to  do, 
if  the  States  all  do  their  full  share?  There  is 
at  present  a  French  Education  Commission  in 

165 


A  National  Department  of  Education 

America  duly  accredited  by  the  French  Govern- 
ment. Who  has  authority  to  bid  it  welcome  in  the 
name  of  American  education?  The  English  uni- 
versities have  proposed  a  commission  to  visit 
England  and  confer  on  questions  of  international 
interest.  Whose  business  is  it  to  take  up  the  mat- 
ter for  American  education?  China  is  emerging 
into  a  new  civilization.  Is  she  to  model  her 
schools  on  the  Prussian  system?  The  Russian 
Republic  is  groping  for  light  educationally,  as  well 
as  othermse.  Are  her  educational  leaders  to  turn 
again  to  Germany?  If  not,  whose  business  is  it 
to  express  a  national  American  interest  in  the  edu- 
cation of  her  illiterate  millions?  South  America 
is  ready  for  closer  relations  educationally.  Must 
the  work  be  left  to  private  foundations,  or  have  we 
other  interests  than  war  which  require  national 
expression  and  national  unity? 

The  national  Government  gave  liberally  for  col- 
leges of  agriculture  and  mechanic  arts,  but  it  has 
had  no  way  of  making  sure  that  the  money  was 
used  for  the  purpose  for  which  it  was  given.  It 
has  learned  already  that  the  nation  which  lacks 
scientifically  trained  men  cannot  wage  war  in 
these  days,  and  if  the  chief  end  of  the  future  were 
to  be  the  waging  of  war,  the  national  Government 
would  have  to  take  a  greater  interest  than  it 
has  ever  done  before  in  the  promotion  of  science 
and  scientific  research.  Government  has  made 
heavy  drafts  on  the  colleges  and  universities  for 
their  trained  scientists,  economists,  psychologists, 
linguists,  public  speakers,  historians,  and  other 

166 


A  National  Department  of  Education 

experts  in  the  present  emergency.  After  such  a 
demonstration,  is  the  Government  prepared  to  say 
to  education  after  the  war,  ''  Washington  is  no 
place  for  you ;  leave  representation  in  the  govern- 
ment machine  to  soldiers,  farmers,  and  mechan- 
ics"? Or  are  we  prepared  to  say:  "We  have 
invested  a  billion  dollars  in  school  plants;  and 
spend  nearly  a  billion  a  year  on  running  expenses ; 
we  keep  seven  hundred  thousand  teachers  con- 
stantly employed;  we  entrust  to  their  charge  the 
best  years  of  twenty-two  million  American  youth, 
an  army  as  great  in  numbers  as  all  the  armies  of 
all  the  nations  now  under  arms.  If  America  has 
any  contribution  to  make  to  the  world,  it  is  her 
schools  and  the  ideals  of  her  schools.  If  we  can- 
not always  have  for  the  head  of  the  Cabinet  a 
schoolmaster,  at  least  let  us  have  one  Cabinet 
member  who  can  talk  internationally,  not  for 
ships,  or  shoes,  or  cabbages,  but  for  schools  and 
the  American  citizen  of  tomorrow"? 

To  quote  from  Button  and  Snedden's  ''Educa- 
tional Administration  in  the  United  States": 

' '  It  has  been  a  matter  of  sincere  regret  to  many  that 
the  United  States  has  not  given  to  education  a  place  in 
the  councils  of  the  nation,  equal  to  war  or  commerce. 
The  work  of  raising  the  Bureau  of  Education  to  its 
proper  dignity  and  equipping  it  to  control  and  care  for 
all  the  educational  agencies  which  the  Government  un- 
dertakes, awaits  the  commanding  effort  of  some  great 
leader,  who  not  only  appreciates  the  crying  evil  of  the 
present  situation,  but  has  the  heart  and  the  courage  to 
take  up  the  battle  and  win  the  victory." 

167 


WHY  THE  TRUST  IDEA  IS  NOT  APPLI- 
CABLE TO  EDUCATION 

TRUSTS,  A  FALLACIOUS  ANALOGY   FOR   COLLEGES  AND 
UNIVERSITIES 

THIS  has  been  an  age  of  trusts,  of  combina- 
tions and  consolidations  of  all  sorts,  and  the 
public  imagination  and  reason  have  been  influ- 
enced thereby.  The  arguments  advanced  in  favor 
of  trusts  are :  A  lessening  of  cost  of  production, 
greater  division  of  labor,  with  consequent  speciali- 
zation of  functions,  and  higher  and  better  paid 
skill.  To  these  may  be  added  a  wiser  control  of 
production  and  the  elimination  of  waste.  Two 
central  ideas  have  consequently  become  firmly 
fixed  in  the  public  mind;  first,  the  economy  in- 
volved in  combination,  and  second,  the  greater 
perfection  and  higher  skill  demanded  and  secured 
by  the  large  organization  as  compared  with  the 
small  organization.  There  is  a  natural  disposi- 
tion accordingly,  to  extend  the  same  methods  to 
other  than  commercial  fields.  We  see  it  in  the 
work  of  the  church.  At  the  present  time  there  is 
a  movement  in  more  than  one  of  our  principal 
denominations  to  consolidate  and  combine  the 
work  of  various  mission  boards.  We  notice  it  in 
the  case  of  individual  churches  in  our  large  cities. 


Address  for  the  Semi-Centennial  of  Westminster  College,  Ful- 
ton, Missouri. 

168 


The  Trust  Idea 

In  New  York  in  the  last  few  years  we  have  had 
at  least  two  notable  instances  where  two  churches, 
both  strong  and  abundantly  able  to  support  them- 
selves as  independent  organizations,  have  united 
to  form  one  church,  thus  making  the  church  more 
of  a  preponderant  force,  and  the  road  easier  finan- 
cially for  members  of  both  churches. 

There  is  at  the  present  time  a  strong  disposi- 
tion among  many  to  extend  the  trust  idea  to  col- 
leges and  universities.  They  feel  that  the  day  has 
passed  for  small  things  in  education — that  nothing 
is  worth  doing  which  is  not  done  on  a  large  scale 
or  as  part  of  a  large  whole — that  it  is  needless 
and  wasteful  expenditure  of  effort  for  the  various 
churches  to  engage  in  separate  educational  enter- 
prises— that  the  same  amount  of  work  could  be 
done  much  more  satisfactorily  and  economically 
by  a  single  joint  institution,  than  by  a  half  dozen 
scattered  institutions,  and  at  any  rate,  whether 
the  advantages  be  greater  or  less,  the  business 
man  feels  himself  entirelj^  competent  to  judge  one 
point,  and  that  is,  that  it  would  be  infinitely  easier 
and  cheaper  for  him  and  his  partner  were  the  five 
institutions  reduced  to  one  than  it  is  to  put  their 
hands  down  into  their  own  pockets  and  help  make 
up  the  salary  of  an  instructor,  or  pay  the  coal  bill 
for  a  building. 

So  widespread  and  so  general  is  the  belief  in 
consolidations  of  this  sort,  that  I  need  not  spend 
time  in  an  effort  to  be  fair  and  Just  by  pointing 
out  how  much  truth  there  is  in  it,  or  how  well  it 
would  be  if,  under  certain  circumstances  and  under 

169 


Why  the  Trust  Idea 

certain  conditions,  more  heed  were  paid  to  such 
considerations  by  those  entrusted  with  the  man- 
agement of  educational  foundations.  There  is,  at 
the  present  time,  I  am  convinced,  less  danger  of 
these  principles  of  economy  through  consolidation, 
being  slighted,  than  of  a  failure  to  recognize  the 
objections  and  difficulties  involved  in  an  introduc- 
tion of  the  trust  idea  in  education,  and  a  dis- 
regard of  the  thoroughly  sound  and  wise  argu- 
ments in  favor  of  a  multiphcity  of  educational 
foundations. 

I  wish,  therefore,  in  this  paper  to  urge  the  other 
side  of  the  question.  To  recall  the  strong  argu- 
ments in  favor  of  individual  initiative  and  of  di- 
versification of  effort.  To  show,  if  possible,  that 
there  is  still  wisdom  in  the  old  maxim  that  every 
man  should  hoe  his  own  row,  and  every  company 
bear  its  own  burdens.  To  strengthen  our  faith  in 
the  soundness  of  judgment  and  foresight  of  the 
founders  of  our  institutions,  and  to  fix  more  firmly 
our  faith  in  their  future  destinies. 

Taking  up,  then,  the  trust  idea  as  applied  to 
education,  let  us  consider  first  what,  for  conven- 
ience' sake,  I  may  call  the  local  argument.  When 
in  the  business  world  the  factories  in  this  or  that 
particular  towTi  are  closed  by  reason  of  their  ab- 
sorption by  a  trust  and  the  town  perchance  ruined, 
the  people  of  that  locality  bring  forward  these  re- 
sults as  arguments  against  the  trust  idea.  To 
these  the  answer  is  made  that  in  estimating  the 
economic  advantages  or  disadvantages  of  any 
particular  phase  or  development  of  industry,  we 

170 


Is  Not  Applicable  to  Education 

must  have  regard  to  its  effect  not  on  this  or  that 
particular  man,  nor  on  this  or  that  particular 
town  or  county,  but  to  its  effect  on  the  nation  or 
even  the  world  as  a  whole.     Just  as  some  political 
economists  argue  for  free  trade  on  the  ground  that 
while  it  may  not  develop  as  high  a  civilization  in 
this  particular  part  of  the  world  as  protection 
might,  yet  the  world  as  a  whole  will  be  better  off. 
Can  the  same  answer  properly  be  made  to  the 
argument  for  a  diversity  of  educational  institu- 
tions on  the  ground  that  they  supply  a  local  need? 
I  shall,  I  believe,  command  assent,  if  I  say  that  the 
trust  idea  is  not  applicable  to  education  as  re- 
gards the  location  of  educational  institutions,  be- 
cause, while  industrial  reasons  may  importantly 
affect  the  distribution  of  population  and  the  popu- 
lation adjust  itself  ultimately  to  the  new  location 
of  factories,  population  will  not  to  any  extent  so 
adjust  itself  to  the  location  of  colleges.     The  argu- 
ment in  behalf  of  a  multiplicity  rather  than  a  con- 
solidation of  colleges,  is  a  sound  one,  which  main- 
tains that  the  settlement  of  the  question  whether 
the  American  boy  or  girl  is  to  enjoy  a  college  edu- 
cation or  not,  will  depend  largely  on  whether  the 
college  is  located  within  one  hundred  miles  of  the 
particular  boy's  or  girl's  home.     To  my  mind  this 
argument  is  an  unanswerable  one,  and  borne  out 
by  the  statistics  of  attendance  at  our  great  insti- 
tutions.    The  exceptional  boy  or  girl  once  started 
on  the  road  towards  an  education  will  of  course 
pursue  it  wherever  it  is  to  be  found,  and  whatever 
the  obstacles  in  the  way  of  attainment.    But  the 

171 


Why  the  Trust  Idea 

average  boy  or  girl  if  the  college  or  university  is 
too  far  out  of  his  ordinary  environment  and  circle 
of  thought,  is  not  likely  to  venture  on  a  tour  of 
discovery  into  unknown  lands.  Railroads  and 
telegraphs  and  newspapers  are  binding  the  world 
closer  together  so  that  a  man's  neighborhood  is 
much  more  comprehensive  than  it  was  fifty  years 
ago,  and  yet  if  one  goes  into  one  of  the  counties 
in  the  center  of  the  State  of  New  York  and  asks 
the  men  he  meets  how  often  they  have  been  in 
the  metropolis,  he  is  likely  to  be  astonished  at  the 
home-keeping  characteristics  of  his  neighbors. 
It  is  the  local  teacher  and  the  local  institution 
which  must  create  the  demand  and  desire  for  a 
higher  education.  It  is  conceivable  of  course,  as 
education  became  organized  on  the  lines  of  a  great 
trust,  that  just  as  the  tobacco  trust  continues  to 
cultivate  a  demand  for  its  product  in  the  most  re- 
mote village  by  means  of  its  traveling  men,  so  the 
great  centralized  university  by  means  of  College 
Extension  lectures  and  their  traveling  instructors, 
would  cultivate  the  demand  for  learning  and  cul- 
ture in  the  most  out-of-the-way  points  of  the  State. 
I  say  it  is  conceivable  but  it  is  not  likely.  Wis- 
dom crieth  aloud  in  the  streets,  but  so  far  as  his- 
tory shows,  if  you  give  knoAvledge  a  chance  to  be 
exclusive  and  oligarchical,  she  will  seize  it.  The 
first  argument  then,  against  the  tinist  in  education, 
is  that  unlike  the  factory,  the  college  does  not  take 
its  population  with  it.  It  only  moves  its  culture. 
The  local  institution  then  exists  not  only  to  meet 
a  local  demand,  but  for  the  express  purpose  of 

172 


Is  Not  Applicable  to  Education 

creating  such  a  demand  in  that  particular  locality. 

The  second  strong  argument  in  favor  of  trusts 
is  the  argument  based  upon  the  reduction  in  the 
cost  of  production.  In  brief,  the  argument  for 
economy.  As  applied  to  the  educational  world 
we  may  take  up  this  argument  from  two  stand- 
points. First,  the  saving  to  society  at  large,  and 
second,  the  saving  to  the  individual  student. 
Taking  the  second  first,  the  unanswerable  argu- 
ment advanced  by  the  Standard  Oil  Company  has 
always  been  that  oil  was  furnished  to  the  con- 
sumer cheaper  than  it  could  have  been  without 
consolidation.  So,  too,  I  am  inclined  to  believe 
that  consolidation  in  the  educational  world  might 
in  the  long  run,  perhaps,  give  the  individual  stu- 
dent his  education  at  a  somewhat  less  cost. 
Though  this  conclusion  is  open  to  considerable 
doubt.  Certainly  it  has  not  been  true  thus  far, 
that  the  larger  the  institution  and  the  better  en- 
dowed, the  cheaper  the  cost  to  the  student,  but 
quite  the  contrary.  Even  if  college  fees  are  less, 
the  cost  of  living  shows  a  tendency  to  increase  in 
proportion  to  the  number  of  students.  With  the 
consolidation  of  educational  institutions  they 
would  naturally  gravitate  to  the  larger  cities 
where  the  cost  of  living  is  higher. 

We  may  say,  therefore,  that  the  economy  for. 
the  student  through  consolidation  is  likely  to 
come,  if  at  all,  not  directly  but  indirectly.  That 
is,  he  will  spend  the  same  for  his  education,  but 
he  will  secure  along  with  the  education  greater 
bodily  comforts  and  intellectual  luxuries.    In  edu- 

173 


Why  the  Trust  Idea 

cation  as  elsewhere,  the  law  will  hold  that  the 
more  complex  the  civilization,  the  more  expen- 
sive will  be  the  scale  of  life.  Nor  is  it  always  a 
sound  argument  in  favor  of  the  greater  expenses 
involved  in  attendance  at  a  large  institution,  that 
the  greater  range  of  subjects  afforded  is  worth 
the  additional  cost.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  it  often 
happens,  that  the  very  richness  of  the  curriculum 
proves  an  embarrassment.  If  the  university 
offers  five  highly  specialized  courses  in  economics, 
it  is  very  probable  that  the  college  student  who 
wishes  only  a  general  comprehensive  outline  of  the 
subject,  will  be  unable  to  find  w^hat  he  wants. 

A  story  is  told  of  a  remark  made  to  the  Dean 
of  the  Department  of  Economics  at  one  of  our 
large  universities  by  a  senior  that,  he  had  just 
listened  to  an  explanation  of  the  theory  of  the 
trade  winds,  for  the  seventh  time,  in  seven  dif- 
ferent courses,  and  that  he  was  becoming  slightly 
tired  of  that  particular  topic  in  economics.  It 
often  happens  too,  in  the  large  institutions,  that 
the  apparent  range  of  electives  is  fictitious,  be- 
cause so  many  of  the  courses  are  offered  at  the 
same  hour.  The  result  is,  that  the  under-graduate 
student  may  find  it  more  difficult  to  arrange  a  satis- 
factory course  of  study  at  the  large  institutions 
than  at  the  more  modest  small  college.  There  is 
no  economy,  therefore,  for  the  average  man  in 
paying  for  the  great  range  of  electives,  if  what 
he  wants  is  merely  a  well  proportioned  and  well 
selected  college  course. 

Turning  now  to  the  economy  for  the  community 

174 


Is  Not  Applicable  to  Education 

in  such  consolidation  of  educational  institutions, 
there  can  be  no  question  that  we  have  here  an  ar- 
gument which  appeals  strongly  to  the  average 
man.  Just  as  the  American  family  in  the  large 
cities  is  gradually  giving  up  its  independent,  sep- 
arate house,  for  the  consolidated  apartment  house ; 
so  the  American  is  ready  to  have  his  half  dozen 
colleges  move  into  one  building,  because  of  the 
obvious  economy  involved. 

A  college  with  one  hundred  students  must  have 
a  professor  of  Greek,  and  a  college  with  two  hun- 
dred students  must  have  a  professor  of  Greek, 
but  not  two.  A  college  with  two  hundred  students 
must  have  a  professor  of  French;  but  a  college 
with  four  hundred  students  will  req6ire  no  more. 
A  college  with  four  hundred  students  may  re- 
quire an  instructor  in  Spanish ;  but  a  college  with 
eight  hundred  will  probably  be  equally  content 
with  one  man  in  this  department.  And,  so,  the 
business  man  of  to-day,  stating  the  problem  thus 
to  himself:  Five  thousand  boys  to  educate  in  col- 
lege, will  it  cost  more  per  head  to  educate  them  in 
one  institution  or  in  ten ;  if  he  looks  no  further,  is 
likely  to  say,  the  more  consolidation,  the  more 
prevalent  the  trust  idea,  the  better,  because  it 
saves  the  community  money  and  effort.  Now, 
such  an  argument  is,  of  course,  a  sound  one,  so 
far  as  it  goes,  provided,  we  admit  the  truth  of 
the  conditions  upon  which  it  is  based.  As  a  mat- 
ter of  fact,  however,  a  careful  study  of  educational 
finances  makes  one  very  skeptical  as  to  whether 
there  is  any  such  great  economy  in  the  consolida- 

175 


Why  the  Trust  Idea 

tjoii  of  t'ducatioiial  olTort.  One  man  can  teach 
Avcll  only  a  certain  number  of  men — not  over  forty, 
1  should  say,  in  the  college  grade.  If  a  class  ex- 
ceeds this  number,  it  should  be  divided  into  sec- 
tions, and  to  teach  two  sections  of  forty  each  in 
the  same  institution,  is  hardly  less  expensive  than 
to  teach  one  class  of  fort}'^  in  each  of  two  institu- 
tions. Again,  the  greater  the  organization  the 
more  red  tape  and  the  more  machinerj^,  and  the 
more  waste.  Administrative  work,  which  is  done 
incidentally  by  professors  in  a  small  institution, 
requires  in  a  large  institution  special  officers. 
The  college  which  has  an  annual  budget  of  twenty 
thousand  a  year,  is,  of  necessity  more  careful  in 
the  expenditure  of  a  dollar  than  an  institution 
which  has  an  annual  budget  of  two  hundred  thou- 
sand dollars  a  year.  We  are,  I  believe,  too  ready 
to  take  it  for  granted  that  consolidation  must 
necessarily  mean  the  elimination  of  unnecessary 
expense,  and  the  consequent  reduction  in  the  aver- 
age cost  of  performing  a  specific  piece  of  work. 

But,  supposing  that  we  admit  for  the  sake  of 
argument,  that  the  individual  student  would  save 
something  in  financial  cost  and  the  community 
would  save  something  by  educational  consolida- 
tion, would  there  not  be  lost  thereby,  things  of  a 
value  hard  to  reckon  in  dollars  and  cents  ?  There 
are  a  good  many  who  feel  that  a  clear  case  can 
be  made  out  against  trusts  in  the  commercial  world 
on  this  very  ground.  Supposing  that  it  is  true 
that  I  can  get  a  coat,  a  sewing  machine,  a  type- 
writer, a  gallon  of  oil,  cheaper  by  reason  of  thQ 

J76 


Is  Not  Applicable  to  Education 

trusts,  is  there,  after  all,  enough  in  the  conse- 
quent increase  of  the  things  to  eat  and  the  things 
to  drink  and  the  things  with  which  we  shall  be 
clothed,  to  compensate  me  and  tens  of  thousands 
like  me,  for  the  loss  of  opportunity  to  be  our  own 
masters  commercially,  to  conduct  our  own  busi- 
ness in  our  own  way,  on  our  own  responsibility, 
and  feel  ourselves  free  and  equal  individuals 
among  many  independent  men,  rather  than  mere 
cogs  in  a  gigantic  wheel?  This  is  not  the  time  nor 
the  place  to  say  whether  there  are,  or  are  not, 
such  priceless  considerations  lost  in  industrial 
combines,  which  more  than  offset  the  financial 
economies.  But  if  such  arguments  may  be  urged 
in  the  commercial  world,  which  goes  on  the  as- 
sumption that  values  can  all  be  measured  in  dol- 
lars and  cents,  how  much  more  properly  might 
they  be  urged  when  we  come  to  things  of  educa- 
tion; when  we  come  to  colleges  which  avow  that 
the  fruits  of  their  labors  are  not  such  that  you  can 
weigh  them  in  the  balance  over  against  so  much 
gold? 

What  are  some  of  the  things  which  we  would 
lose  were  the  trust  idea  to  prevail  in  education? 
All  that  has  been  said  in  favor  of  the  small  col- 
lege would  have  to  be  reckoned  on  the  debit  side 
of  the  account,  were  we  to  blot  out  this  class  of 
institutions  by  consolidation.  For  myself,  I  be- 
lieve that  there  would  be  no  economy  to  society 
at  large,  which  could  begin  to  compensate  for  the 
loss  which  it  would  suffer  in  the  cutting  off  of  the 
supply  of  that  pecuhar  quality  of  manhood  which 

177 


Why  the  Trust  Idea 

has  in  the  past  issued  from  the  small  institutions 
and  shown  itself  peculiarly  fitted  for  leadership 
and  great  achievements  in  the  State. 

But  we  must  have  regard  not  merely  to  the 
product,  but  also  to  the  process.  A  fallacy  creeps 
in  when  in  an  argument  of  this  sort  we  introduce 
a  coimiiercial  analogy,  because  in  the  industrial 
world  the  product  is  the  only  consideration.  If  it 
is  crackers  you  are  manufacturing,  the  question 
is,  how  many  crackers,  and  of  w^hat  flavor  does 
a  given  method  turn  out.  If  it  is  needles,  then 
w^hat  and  how^  many  needles.  If  straw  hats,  then 
what  and  how  many  straw  hats. 

The  value  of  a  given  process  in  the  commercial 
world  is  reckoned  solely  by  the  value  of  its  com- 
pleted products;  the  process  is  of  no  value  in  it- 
self. If  we  could  pick  from  trees,  or  off  a  grocer's 
counter,  crackers  already  done  up  in  in-er-seal 
packages,  w^e  should  have  little  concern  as  sociolo- 
gists w^hether  there  existed  any  cracker  factories 
or  not.  In  other  words,  it  is  solely  the  product 
^vhich  vre  seek  in  commercial  industry  and  not  the 
processes.  The  same  is  not  true,  however,  of  edu- 
cation, from  the  standpoint  of  the  sociologist  or 
the  philosopher. 

If  it  were  our  lot  to  order  the  life  of  the  universe 
and  we  were  compelled  to  omit  all  that  life  which 
exists  in  the  school  and  involves  the  relation  of 
student  and  teacher  in  the  pursuit  of  truth  for 
truth's  sake,  and  the  study  of  the  best  in  letters 
and  in  history  and  philosophy  for  its  own  sake, 

178 


Is  Not  Applicable  to  Education 

I 

we  should  feel  that  we  had  been  set  a  task  and  at 
the  same  time  denied  most  desirable  material 
for  the  proper  completion  of  that  task.  In  other 
words,  school  and  college  life  are  to  be  followed 
not  only  as  a  means  of  preparation,  but  as  good 
things  in  themselves.  In  so  far  as  they  involved 
the  pursuit  and  contemplation  of  truth  for  its 
own  sake,  they  are  an  occupation  which  from  the 
days  of  Plato  down  to  the  present,  have  properly 
been  regarded  as  among  the  highest  forms  of  ac- 
tivity open  to  men.  It  is  to  the  interest,  therefore, 
of  every  community,  not  only  to  have  educational 
machinery  for  turning  out  well  equipped  men,  but 
also  to  have  the  process  going  on  in  their  midst, 
and  open  to  the  participation,  in  one  way  or  an- 
other, of  all  their  citizens. 

The  argument  advanced  in  favor  of  the  eight- 
hour  day  by  the  trades-unions  is  that  the  work- 
ing man  should  have  at  his  disposal  certain  hours 
for  those  pursuits  which  elevate  and  ennoble. 
This  is  a  recognition  of  the  value  to  a  community 
of  having  such  pursuits  cultivated.  It  ought  to 
be  the  laudable  ambition  of  every  state,  not  only 
to  have  great  manufactories,  rich  farms,  produc- 
tive lands,  stately  public  buildings,  and  beautiful 
homes  within  its  borders,  but  to  have  also  its  own 
great  men,  its  own  statesmen  and  orators,  and 
authors  and  poets,  its  own  scholars,  its  own  great 
teachers.  We  ought  to  recognize  that  civic  pride 
demands  quite  as  truly  that  the  men  in  the  South 
and  West  should  flock  to  New  York  to  sit  at  the 

179 


Why  the  Trust  Idea 

foot  of  s;roat  teachers,  as  that  they  should  flock 
to  New  York  to  buy  their  fall  and  spring  silks 
and  cottons.  There  is  but  one  way  in  wliich  a 
state  can  secure  such  men  for  itself,  and  that  is 
by  the  estabhshment  of  permanent  foundations, 
which  shall  furnish  them  an  honorable  position 
and  a  reasonable  livelihood,  while  they  pursue 
their  chosen  work.  It  is  not  economy,  therefore, 
to  a  state  ^\ith  such  civic  pride  to  reduce,  by 
consolidation,  its  professors  in  Greek,  and  to  have 
one  teacher  where  formerly  there  were  two. 
Rather  should  it  resolve  to  multiply  and  increase 
its  educational  endo^\^nents  so  that  the  state  could 
by  means  of  them  keep  within  its  borders,  those  of 
its  own  men  who  showed  special  promise,  and 
could  at  the  same  time  attract  the  best  from  other 
parts  of  the  land. 

But  an  educational  institution  confers  good 
upon  the  community  apart  from  the  product  which 
it  turns  out,  in  other  ways  than  by  maintenance 
of  professorships.  There  is  not  a  college  in  New 
York,  however  small  and  unimportant,  which  is 
supported  by  gifts  from  the  public,  which  does 
not  perform  a  useful  service  as  a  propaganda  for 
the  highest  interests  of  life.  Necessity  is  laid 
upon  it  to  interest  men  and  women  in  these  higher 
things  in  order  that  it  may  receive  from  them  the 
means  of  livelihood.  It  becomes,  therefore,  a 
great  missionary  enterprise  for  awakening  the 
public  mind  to  a  true  conception  of  the  importance 
and  worth  of  education. 

180 


Is  Not  Applicable  to  Education 

No  man  can  serve  on  the  board  of  such  an  in- 
stitution without  receiving  indirect  benefit  thereby. 
It  gives  him  a  broader  outlook  on  the  affairs  of 
hfe  and  so  enlarges  and  enriches  his  soul  that 
he  is  thenceforth  a  better  and  a  bigger  man  than 
he  would  otherwise  have  been.  The  state  uni- 
versities and  the  public  school  systems  have  been 
slow  to  realize  and  to  acknowledge  the  debt  which 
they  owe  to  the  private  institutions  for  thus  creat- 
ing and  disseminating  a  knowledge  and  a  faith  in 
things  educational.  We  may  query,  whether  in  the 
course  of  two  or  three  generations  if  education 
were  to  become  solely  a  matter  for  the  state,  to 
be  supported  by  state  appropriations,  secured 
through  manipulation  of  state  legislatures,  there 
would  not  be  a  decay  of  this  faith  and  knowledge 
among  the  people  at  large. 

Thirdly,  as  to  the  argument  in  behalf  of  consoli- 
dation, on  the  ground  that  thereby  there  is  greater 
specialization  of  function  and  a  consequent  de- 
mand for  higher  and  better  paid  skill,  I  am  ready 
to  admit  that  the  growth  of  great  institutions  cre- 
ates a  place  for  great  specialists,  and  a  demand 
for  thorough  and  minute  scholarship  in  the  vari- 
ous fields  of  knowledge.  But  it  is  equally  true 
that  the  small  college  has  created  and  maintains 
a  demand  for  a  type  of  teacher  equally  valuable 
and  equally  important  to  the  state.  We  need  the 
specialists,  but  we  need  also  the  teacher  who  is 
more  man  than  scholar.  It  will  be  an  unfortunate 
day  for  education  if  the  time  ever  comes  when 

181 


Why  the  Trust  Idea 

scholarship  counts  more  than  character,  in  de- 
fining the  qualifications  for  the  position  of  teacher 
of  the  nation's  youth. 

I  have  thus  tried  to  set  forth  considerations 
which  should  oppose  the  growing  tendency  to  re- 
gard the  trust  idea  in  education  as  unanswerable 
upon  the  grounds  of  economy,  greater  specializa- 
tion, and  wider  opportunity  for  the  individual  stu- 
dent. At  the  same  time,  we  of  the  educational 
world  may  well  profit  by  certain  lessons  of  the 
trust.  If  we  are  to  have  diversity  of  educational 
enterprises  they  must  be  carried  on  not  in  the 
spirit  of  ruthless  competition  for  selfish  ends,  but 
in  a  spirit  of  friendly  cooperation,  such  as  should 
be  found  among  laborers  for  a  great  purpose, 
w^hich  is  not  to  be  my  individual  good  or  your  in- 
di\ddual  good,  but  the  good  of  all.  An  applica- 
tion of  the  trust  idea  to  education  such  as  this, 
we  cannot  but  heartily  applaud ;  but  the  other  ap- 
plication, to  reduce  the  number  of  plants,  to  cur- 
tail the  number  of  men  involved,  to  handle  stu- 
dents in  large  masses  instead  of  as  individuals; 
to  spend  less  on  these  higher  things  that  we  may 
spend  more  on  the  lusts  of  the  flesh  and  the  pride 
of  life ;  such  an  application  is  one  to  be  con- 
demned. Let  those  who  have  been  bearing  the 
burden  in  the  support  and  maintenance  of  our  col- 
leges, be  not  too  eager  to  rid  themselves  of  the 
load,  or  to  turn  the  task  over  to  some  one  else. 
Let  us  realize  rather  that,  in  founding  and  main- 
taining colleges,  they  have  been  engaging  in  a 
work  which  can  only  reflect  honor  upon  the  state. 

182 


Is  Not  Applicable  to  Education 

That  they  have  been  engaged  in  doing  a  thing 
which  is  good  in  itself  and  is  profitable  for  all 
things.  Let  them  not  be  solicitous  for  size. 
Let  them  be  solicitous  for  quality.  Let  them 
ask  themselves  not  for  how  little  we  can 
secure  our  teachers,  but  how  attractive  a  field 
of  labor  can  we  make  our  foundations.  Not  how 
little  can  we  do  for  our  students  and  still  retain 
their  patronage,  but  how  much  can  this  philan- 
thropic enterprise  give  to  those  who  come  within 
its  influence.  If  in  such  a  spirit  as  this  they  will 
heartily  prosecute  their  great  undertakings,  there 
will  be  no  one  so  narrow  as  to  deny  them  their 
proper  place  in  the  great  world  of  education,  and 
there  will  be  no  wise,  intelligent  citizen  who  will 
not  favor  multiplication  rather  than  subtraction 
for  such  colleges  in  America. 


183 


DEFINING  THE  COLLEGE  MAN 

IN  coming  to  speak  at  Davidson  College,  I  do  \ 

not  feel  that  I  am  coming  entirely  to  a  strange 
land,  or  to  one  with  wliich  Pennsylvania  has  no 
associations.  One  hundred  and  forty-two  years 
ago,  Lafayette  rode  from  Carolina  to  Philadel- 
phia; a  fatiguing  journey  of  a  month.  Colonel 
William  Da^'idson,  a  native  Pennsylvanian,  came 
from  Pennsylvania  to  fight  for  freedom  in  the 
Carolinas.  Lafayette  College's  most  distin- 
guished professor,  Francis  A.  March,  was  sum- 
moned to  Easton  from  Virginia,  and  the  first 
President  of  Lafayette,  George  Junkin,  gave  his 
daughter  as  the  bride  of  that  stalwart  Presby- 
terian soldier,  StoneAvall  Jackson.  In  the  old  days 
many  Southern  students  journeyed  to  Easton  as 
they  did  to  Princeton  and  felt  at  home  in  colleges 
of  our  common  Calvinism,  and  at  my  oa\ti  inaug- 
uration four  years  ago,  we  were  glad  to  adopt  as 
an  honorary  son  of  Lafayette,  a  native  of  Char- 
lotte, and  one  who  I  doubt  not  was  loved  here  in 
Davidson  as  he  was  throughout  the  country,  even 
though  head  of  a  rival  institution,  Edward  K. 
Graham,  the  only  one  of  the  twelve  regional  direc- 
tors of  the  Student  Army  Training  Corps  who 
paid  the  price  of  his  patriotic  service  with  his  life, 


Commencement   address   at   Davidson   College,   North   Carolina, 
May,   1919. 

184 


Defining  the  College  Man 

and  to  whose  memory,  I  could  not  but  pay  a  tri- 
bute of  respect  and  devotion  as  I  entered  his  birth 
place  yesterday  morning.  As  I  read  the  history 
of  the  Revolutionary  days  and  see  how  much  pass- 
ing to  and  fro  there  was  between  Pennsylvania  and 
the  Carolinas  in  the  days  of  horesback  riding,  I 
cannot  but  feel  that  in  this  day  of  aeroplanes  and 
automobiles  our  educational  relations  should  be 
closer,  and  our  scholastic  interchanges  more  fre- 
quent, and  in  this  belief  I  have  come  to  speak  to 
you  to-day. 

While  this  is  my  first  view  of  the  physical  David- 
son, Davidson  College  is  no  stranger.  I  know  it 
as  a  civil  engineer  knows  a  point  on  the  other  side 
of  the  mountain  which  he  cannot  see,  by  triangula- 
tion.  I  have  looked  at  it  from  the  angle  of  a 
Presbyterian  college  in  Missouri,  as  well  as  from  / 
a  Presbyterian  college  in  Pennsylvania.  The 
pastor  of  the  college  church  in  Missouri  was  a 
Davidson  alumnus,  and  we  ate  at  the  same  table 
for  the  better  part  of  four  years.  In  the  stormy 
times  of  the  S.A.T.C.  days  at  Lafayette,  two  of 
our  twenty  officers  were  Davidson  men.  When  I 
was  in  Missouri,  I  was  a  communicant  of  the 
Southern  Church,  and  I  knew  Davidson  as  a  lead- 
ing college  of  the  denomination.  I  cannot  but  re- 
gret as  president  of  Lafayette,  the  only  college  for 
men  east  of  the  Alleghenies  legally  connected  with 
the  Presbyterian  Church,  North,  that  an  intangi- 
ble veil  certainly  not  theological,  and  certainly  not 
geographical,  should  deprive  us  of  the  close  fel- 
lowship and  cooperation  of  Davidson  as  fellow 

185 


Defining  the  College  Man 

Prosb\i;erians  working  in  the  common  cause  of 
Christian  odncation.     Many  and  varied,  however, 
as  have  been  the  lines  of  reh^tion  which  have  as- 
sociated me  with  Davidson,  the  picture  which  has 
hitherto  come  most  prominently  to  my  mind  when 
Davidson  College  is  mentioned,  is  a  picture  of  a 
man.     The  man  is  John  F.  Cannon  of  St.  Louis. 
When  in  St.  Louis  week  before  last  at  the  meet- 
ing of  our  General  Assembly,  I  found  that  great 
changes  had  occurred  in  the  city  during  the  six- 
teen years  I  had  been  away.     The  Grand  Avenue 
Presbyterian  Church  had  rebuilt  itself  a  splendid 
new  Gothic  building  in  the  western  part  of  the  city, 
and  had  changed  its  name,  but  not  its  pastor,  and 
I  was  glad  to  greet  again  the  man  who  had  served 
them  for  thirty-one  years  with  unswerving  fidel- 
ity.    I  found  him  not  quite  as  erect  as  the  straight, 
tall    North    Carolinian   pine    I    had   known;    his 
shoulders  had  become  somewhat  bowed  with  the 
weight  of  years  and  the  woes  of  the  war,  but  the 
same  bright  eye  was  there ;  the  same  kindly  cour- 
tesy ;  the  same  ruminating  intellect ;  the  same  un- 
hasting,  unwearying  devotion  to  duty;  the  same 
singleness  of  purpose;  and  if  I  mistake  not,  one 
who  has  known  John  F.  Cannon  well  for  twenty 
years  has  a  pretty  good  idea  of  Davidson  College. 

I  have  ventured  to  give  my  address  this  morn- 
ing the  title,  '' Defining  the  College  Man,"  with 
the  purpose  of  calling  your  attention  to  some  modi- 
fications brought  about  by  the  war  in  the  emphasis 
we  place  on  various  phases  of  this  definition. 

The  phrase  which  has  been  made  familiar  to  all 

186 


Defining  the  College  Man 

of  us  by  the  war  and  which  we  have  learned  to 
hear  with  general  satisfaction  is,  "They  attained 
their  objective."  Definiteness  of  aim  is  three- 
fourths  of  success  and  naming  an  objective  gives  a 
measure  of  achievement.  If  we  know  what  point 
we  wish  to  reach,  we  know  when  we  have  arrived. 
If  we  know  what  we  want,  we  know  when  we  get 
it,  that  we  have  the  achievement  to  our  credit. 
Geometry  is  one  of  the  most  delightful  of  all 
studies,  because  you  can  write  at  the  bottom  of 
each  page,  Q.  E.  D.,  and  the  page  is  complete. 
Even  God  himself,  the  eternal  worker,  is  por- 
trayed as  moving  forward  step  by  step  toward 
definite  objectives,  and  God  said,  "Let  there  be 
light,"  and  there  was  light,  and  the  evening  and 
the  morning  were  the  first  day.  And  God  made 
the  firmament,  and  the  evening  and  the  morning 
were  the  second  day.  Men  and  women  who  get 
the  least  satisfaction  out  of  life,  are  the  men  and 
women  who  have  no  objectives,  and  who  there- 
fore never  attain.  They  may  be  going  forward 
with  the  rest  of  the  world ^s  army;  they  may  by 
force  of  circumstances  even  be  doing  their  share 
of  the  fighting,  but  it  is  not  purposeful  activity, 
and  unless  they  have  in  their  mind  some  picture 
of  a  good  day's  work,  some  ideal  by  which  they  can 
measure  the  day's  fighting  at  the  end  of  the  day, 
they  lose  the  richest  rewards  life  has  to  give. 

Graduation  is  an  objective  in  the  life  of  the 
college  man.  Most  of  you  have  looked  forward 
to  it  through  four  long  years.  Vicissitudes  of 
war  have  perhaps  made  it  appear  a  vanishing 

187 


Defining  the  College  Man 

vision,  but  to-day  in  si)ite  of  all  the  "ifs"  and 
**biits,"  the  "howevers"  and  "neverthelesses," 
yon  have  attained  yonr  objective.  Nothing  can 
alter  or  detract,  minify  or  magnify  that  simple 
fact.  I  congratulate  the  Class  of  1919  in  that 
in  this  year  of  Avar,  it  can  be  said  of  them  as  of 
good  soldiers,  ''you  have  attained  your  objective." 
What  is  true  of  individuals  is  true  also  of  insti- 
tutions and  of  nations.  If  the  individual  succeeds 
who  has  before  him  a  definite  objective,  so  too 
the  institution  will  succeed  which  moves  forward 
with  conscious  purpose  toward  definite  aims  and 
does  not  sit  waiting  Micawberwise  for  something 
to  turn  up.  It  is,  I  think,  a  just  criticism  which 
has  been  made  against  the  American  college  of 
to-day,  that  it  does  not  define  clearly  to  itself  the 
task  which  it  undertakes,  that  it  does  not  picture 
even  in  its  dreams  its  typical  product,  that  no 
two  members  of  an  American  college  faculty 
would  agree  if  asked  to  name  the  young  man  who 
to  their  minds  most  perfectly  portrayed  the  ideal 
product  of  the  American  college  of  Arts.  Any- 
one who  has  sat  with  the  college  faculty  trying  to 
frame  a  curriculum  in  these  days  of  expanding 
knowledge,  or  any  student  who  has  tried  from  the 
courses  offered  to  select  a  course  of  study  which 
satisfies  him  in  all  particulars,  knows  that  there 
is  no  agreement  among  experts  as  to  what  the 
ideal  American  college  graduate  ought  to  know. 
Even  a  decade  ago,  the  college  professor  could 
satisfy  himself  by  saying  vaguely,  the  aim  of  his 
college  was  to  produce  a  cultivated  lady  or  gentle- 

188 


Defining  the  College  Man 

man  ready  to  enter  a  chosen  calling  or  course  of 
training  with  not  only  a  certain  amount  of  definite 
knowledge,  but  also  with  a  degree  of  appreciation 
and  taste,  of  power  of  mind  and  of  sense  of  method 
such  as  would  insure  their  growth  into  the  best 
of  which  they  were  capable,  and  possibly  into 
the  best  of  their  time  or  even  of  all  time.  A  dec- 
ade ago,  a  college  president  could  write,  and 
Professor  Fulton  must  often  have  been  reminded 
of  the  phrase  as  he  looked  on  at  events  these  last 
months  in  Paris,  ''There  is  a  program  which  will 
make  the  college  man  ready  to  lay  his  mind  along- 
side the  tasks  of  the  world  of  educated  men  with 
some  confidence  that  he  can  master  them  and  can 
understand  why  and  how  they  are  to  be  performed, 
but  what  that  program  is  or  how  that  degree  of 
appreciation  and  taste  and  power  of  mind  are  to  be 
attained,  no  one  seems  prepared  to  tell  us."  The 
Professor  of  Mathematics  cannot  conceive  of  a 
man  liberally  educated  who  knows  no  trigono- 
metry. The  Professor  of  Modern  Languages, 
while  perhaps  willing  to-day  to  surrender  Ger- 
man, insists  that  it  be  replaced  with  Italian,  Span- 
ish, or  possibly  Russian.  The  Professors  of 
Biology,  Physics  and  Chemistry  can  prove  be- 
yond the  possibility  of  a  doubt  the  existence  of  a 
large  blind  spot  in  any  mental  retina  which  sees 
the  universe  only  in  terms  of  cells,  of  molecules  or 
of  motion,  and  not  in  terms  of  all  three,  and  so 
throughout  the  list.  There  was  a  time  when  the 
colleges  tried  to  supply  the  elements  which  the 
society  of  the  day  rated  as  essential  to  culture,  but 

189 


Defining  the  College  Man 

there  is  a  wider  gap  between  the  cultured  man 
as  recognized  and  applauded  by  the  world  of  to- 
day and  the  product  which  the  average  college 
can  guarantee.  The  knowledge  and  appreciation 
of  art,  music,  and  literature  is  perhaps  the  field 
in  Avliich  the  disparity  is  most  clearly  seen,  but 
it  is  equally  obvious  if  you  test  the  familiarity 
of  the  college  graduate  with  his  world  by  ask- 
ing him  to  describe  a  modern  printing  press;  to 
explain  how  cement  is  made,  or  even  to  master 
the  intricacies  of  the  McCormick  reaper.  So 
rapidly  has  scientific  knowledge  expanded;  so 
fruitful  has  been  the  inventive  American  mind  in 
the  world  of  mechanics,  that  there  has  growTii  up  a 
vast  body  of  knowledge  which  has  hardly  yet  got- 
ten into  books  and  of  a  large  part  of  which  even 
the  most  learned  men  are  ignorant.  Certainly 
no  man  could  be  found  who  could  meet  the  demand 
of  the  Wisconsin  legislator,  that  all  the  books  in 
the  university  library  be  read  by  a  student  before 
the  state  go  to  the  expense  of  buying  new  ones. 
Where  could  any  college  president  or  professor 
be  found  who  could  pass  all  the  examinations 
offered  in  his  own  institution?  The  world  of 
learning  to-day  is  a  very  different  world  from 
the  world  which  existed  in  the  good  old  days 
of  Quadrivium  and  Trivium,  or  even  in  the  dsijs 
when  the  College  of  Arts  was  conceived  and 
established. 

The  truth  of  the  matter  is  that  the  college  is  not 
a  factorv^  with  a  standardized  product.  We  could 
not  if  we  would  attain  the  definiteness  and  uni- 

190 


Defining  the  College  Man 

formity  among  college  graduates  that  we  can  se- 
cure for  Uneoda  biscuit  or  Domino  sugar,  but  we 
can  at  least  like  an  army  define  our  objectives  in 
terms  of  direction  and  distance  and  coordinate  our 
efforts  to  secure  the  ultimate  purposes  of  the  cam- 
paign. Even  before  the  war  the  need  of  a  redefi- 
nition of  the  college  product  was  strongly  felt. 
The  revolutions  in  college  thought  and  traditions 
due  to  the  war,  the  new  tasks  demanded  of  college 
men  in  war  time,  the  re-rating  of  the  qualities  of 
college  men  when  confronted  with  new  tasks  such 
as  have  faced  them  the  last  two  years,  all  these 
have  caused  heart-searchings  and  re-investi'ga- 
tions  of  established  creeds  in  the  college  world, 
and  we  have  emerged  from  the  war,  ready  to  listen 
to  new  attempts  at  definitions.  Like  Whittier's 
theologian,  scattering  flowers  on  ancient  faiths,  of 
newer  creeds  which  claim  a  place  in  truth's  do- 
main, we  ask  the  title  deeds. 

In  some  ways  the  war  itself  has  helped  us  to  our 
new  definitions,  and  the  first  and  greatest  service 
of  the  war  in  this  direction  is  the  restoration  of 
our  faith  in  the  indivisible,  unmultipliable,  human 
personality  as  the  unit  of  all  our  calculations. 
Until  the  war  came,  we  were  finding  ourselves 
served  fairly  well  by  a  psychology  without  a  soul, 
by  a  philosophy  which  explained  the  will  in  terms 
of  idea  rather  than  the  idea  in  terms  of  will,  by 
a  philosophy  which  explained  emotion  in  terms  of 
heart,  and  liver  and  bile,  rather  than  heart  and 
liver  and  bile  in  terms  of  wish  and  desire  and  reso- 
lution.    The  habit  had  grown  in  academic  circles 

191 


Defining  the  College  Man 

especially  of  standing  aside  to  watch  the  stream 
of  consciousness  How  by  with  no  clear  sense  of 
responsibility  for  the  good,  the  bad,  the  true  and 
false  which  the  stream  might  bring.  The  slang 
of  the  moment  was  not,  what  do  you  think  your- 
self, but,  I  want  to  get  your  reaction  to  this, — an 
appeal  not  to  a  living  choosing  personality,  but  to 
a  bundle  of  habits.  Upon  this  kind  of  an  aca- 
demic world,  war  burst  in  its  fury.  Great  de- 
cisions on  which  hung  the  issues  of  life  and  death 
confronted  men.  The  path  of  duty  and  the  path 
of  self-interest  diverged.  Habits  of  peace  time 
were  of  little  assistance  in  precipitating  reactions 
for  war.  The  world  of  idea  was  replaced  by  a 
world  of  will.  Reasonableness  ceased  to  be  the 
last  word,  devotion  and  sacrifice  crowded  it  to  one 
side.  Americans  who  had  never  felt  the  heavy 
hand  of  Government,  suddenly  found  themselves 
under  restraint,  not  free  to  come  and  go  as  they 
would,  or  to  refer  their  acts  to  their  conscience  as 
a  court  of  last  resort.  We  grew  accustomed  to 
reading  of  the  will  to  conquest,  of  the  will  to 
victory.  The  Emperor  of  Germany  and  the 
President  of  the  United  States  as  well,  talked  of 
what  /  want.  A  whole  nation  spoke  in  the  impera- 
tive, they  shall  not  pass,  and  we  suddenly  awoke 
to  the  realization  that  our  grandfathers  who 
thought  of  men  as  will  and  passion  were  perhaps 
nearer  right  than  our  fathers  who  thought  of  men 
as  conscious  machines.  In  the  first  place,  I  take  it 
that  in  our  redefinition  of  the  ideal  college  man, 
we  shall  lay  more  emphasis  in  the  age  immediately 

192 


Defining  the  College  Man 

before  us  upon  qualities  of  will,  upon  creative 
imagination,  upon  all  those  qualities  which  we  sum 
up  under  the  word  gallant,  a  man  who  sees  plainly 
his  objective,  and  who  is  not  likely  to  be  deterred 
or  turned  aside  from  reaching  it.  The  war  is  said 
to  have  been  a  war  of  engineers,  and  it  was  the 
engineers  who  sensed  the  need  of  redefinition  in 
this  direction  even  before  the  war  began.  The 
careful  investigation  of  engineering  education  and 
of  the  work  of  educated  engineers  had  brought  the 
engineering  world  to  the  conclusion  that  steps 
must  be  taken  to  cultivate  in  the  engineering 
student,  imagination,  initiative,  courage  and 
knowledge  of  men.  The  tendency  of  training  in 
modem  science  is  to  make  man  think  of  himself 
as  the  subject  of  inexorable  law.  Trained  in  sci- 
entific method,  taught  for  years  that  inaccuracy  is 
the  great  sin,  encouraged  to  deny  his  hopes  and  de- 
sires, striving  to  rid  himself  of  old  preconceptions 
and  personal  preferences  and  to  wait  humbly  at 
his  microscope,  at  his  test  tube,  at  his  telescope 
for  the  reality  that  may  be  revealed,  there  had 
grown  up  gradually  the  worship  of  the  God  of 
things  as  they  are  and  a  paralysis  of  that  function 
of  the  human  will  which  can  utter  what  Carlyle 
calls  the  everlasting  ''yea,"  the  determination  to 
have  a  part  in  the  creation  of  reality.  It  was  only 
the  newness  of  scientific  discovery,  however,  which 
gave  it  this  binding  power.  The  inexorableness 
of  day  and  night,  the  sun  rising  and  the  sun  set- 
ting, of  life  and  death,  have  proved  no  fetter  to 
the  free  spirit  of  man  and  new  scientific  discovery 

193 


Defining  the  College  Man 

growing  more  familiar  and  better  understood  is 
accepted  as  a  matter  of  course,  and  tlie  spirit  is 
free  again  to  proceed  on  its  adventurous  quest. 
As  the  philosophers  have  pointed  out,  we  should 
expect  Mohammedanism  and  Calvinism  with  their 
predestination  and  determinism  to  produce  a  fatal- 
istic race  without  daring,  while  history  shows  just 
the  opposite.  The  man  who  believes  most  firmly 
in  the  supreme  divine  will  seems  freest  in  the  use 
of  the  human  will.  Alfred  Noyes,  perhaps  better 
than  any  modem  poet,  has  sensed  this  problem  of 
thd  relation  of  scientific  knowledge  and  ideals  to 
the  human  will  and  has  showni  how,  rightly  con- 
ceived, the  concept  of  universal  law  liberates 
rather  than  controls  the  human  mind.  ' '  Only  the 
soul  that  plays  its  rhythmic  part  in  that  grand 
measure  of  the  tides  and  sun  terrestrial  and  celes- 
tial until  it  soars  into  the  supreme  melodies  of 
Heaven,  only  that  soul  climbing  the  splendid  round 
of  law^  from  height  to  height  may  walk  with  God, 
shape  its  owm  sphere  from  chaos,  conquer  death, 
lay  hold  on  life  and  liberty  and  sing. ' '  The  Hercu- 
lean tasks  of  the  great  war  came  just  in  time  to 
show  that  there  were  ends  big  enough  and  great 
enough  for  humanity  to  relegate  knowledge  and 
science  to  their  rightful  places  as  servants  rather 
than  masters,  of  willing,  serving,  sacrificing,  tri- 
umphant man. 

The  second  help  to  our  redefinition  given  by  the 
w^ar  comes  from  the  important  part  played  in 
modern  warfare  by  proper  timing  of  our  advance. 
If  the  first  lesson  is  to  define  your  objective,  the 

194 


Defining  the  College  Man 

second  is  to  go  over  the  top  at  the  right  time  and 
proceed  neither  too  fast  nor  too  slow.  Any  one 
who  has  looked  at  a  moving  picture  of  modern  war- 
fare must  have  been  struck  by  the  slow  movement 
of  troops  advancing  under  fire.  In  this  war  the 
artillery  goes  first  and  the  troops  follow  the  bar- 
rage, not  the  individual  attack  first,  supported  by 
the  heavy  guns.  The  present  war  could  be  fought 
only  by  disciplined  soldiers,  soldiers  who  could 
conform  their  actions  to  a  clock.  The  undisci- 
plined soldier  was  for  the  most  part  futile.  I  take 
it  that  from  the  analogy  of  the  barrage  we  shall 
draw  other  arguments  for  restraining  the  impa- 
tience of  youth  and  making  them  submit  to  the 
trying  delays  and  postponements  of  action  which 
must  be  patiently  sustained  if  there  is  to  be  ade- 
quate preparation.  You  men  who  have  stuck  to 
college  through  the  exciting  times  of  the  last  four 
years,  must  know  something  of  the  mind  of  the 
men  who  had  to  spend  long  hours  of  deadly  wait- 
ing in  the  trenches  for  one  hour  of  exciting  pur- 
suit over  the  top.  As  the  world  has  looked  on 
at  the  great  object  lesson  of  the  war  and  has  seen 
the  thousands  of  men  employed  to  contribute  to 
the  success  at  the  critical  moment  of  one  fighting 
man,  as  they  have  realized  how  vastly  intricate  is 
the  organization  which  underlies  the  modern 
fighter  or  the  aviator  with  his  machine  gun,  they 
will  be  less  impatient  with  colleges  in  the  battle  for 
truth,  less  ready  to  suggest  shortcuts,  more  ready 
to  understand  how  the  knowledge  of  truth  and  the 
creation  of  beauty,  the  adaptation  of  new  knowl- 

195 


Defining  the  College  Man 

edge  to  the  happiness  of  men  cannot  be  the  imme- 
diate work  of  all,  even  a  democracy,  but  is  the 
finest  fruit  and  flower  of  the  intricate  machine  of 
civilization,  just  as  the  machinery  of  the  nations  in 
the  great  war  existed  for  the  sake  of  the  fighting 
man,  and  the  fighting  man  for  the  sake  of  the 
nations. 

We  have  learned  more  than  one  lesson  about 
time  in  its  application  to  education  from  the  war, 
however.  We  have  learned  not  only  that  you  must 
take  time  for  adequate  preparation  before  you  ad- 
vance to  your  objective;  not  only  that  you  must 
start  at  the  right  time  and  not  go  too  fast  or  too 
slow  for  the  barrage,  but  we  have  learned  a  great 
deal  also  about  synchronization;  about  all 
branches  of  the  service  doing  things  at  the  same 
time.  Aviators,  artillery,  men  in  the  trenches, 
engineers,  mre-cutters,  railroad  men,  all  must  act 
and  act  at  the  same  time  in  a  great  advance.  It 
has  been  a  telephone  war,  a  Avar  that  could  not 
have  been  fought  without  \\T.reless  and  telephones, 
and  we  may  expect  to  see  education  profit  by  the 
lesson.  We  may  expect  to  find  more  coordination 
in  the  new  curriculum.  We  may  expect  to  find 
the  professor  of  biology  concerned  to  know  when 
the  students  come  to  him  at  11  o'clock,  what  they 
have  been  talking  about  in  the  history  room  at 
10  o'clock,  and  we  may  even  look  forward  to  the 
establishment  of  that  much  needed  telephone  cen- 
tral in  education,  a  chair  of  things  in  general,  so 
that  the  college  graduate  of  to-morrow  Avill  not 
only  know  history  in  the  history  room  and  biology 

196 


Defining  the  College  Man 

in  the  biology  room  and  Latin  in  the  Latin  room, 
but  may  so  coordinate  his  knowledge  that  he  may 
have  some  sort  of  a  world  point  of  view  of  science 
such  as  the  old  chair  of  natural  philosophy  was 
able  to  give  and  some  world  point  of  view  of  man 
and  his  progress  such  as  the  old  text  books  on  the 
history  of  civilization  purported  to  present. 

And  the  third  object  lesson  of  the  war  which 
may  help  in  our  definition  of  the  college  man  is  the 
helplessness  of  man  without  proper  equipment. 
This  war  was  the  war  of  the  machine  gun.  As 
President  Lowell  of  Harvard  has  said  from  the 
educator's  point  of  view,  the  difficulty  with  war- 
fare as  a  subject  of  instruction  is  that  you  have 
to  teach  a  man  to  use  a  weapon  which  is  not  yet 
invented.  Nobody  apparently  had  guessed  the 
possibilities  of  machine  gun  warfare,  but  we 
learned  before  w^e  got  through  that  one  man  at  a 
machine  gun,  whether  he  was  a  German,  an  Eng- 
lishman, or  an  American,  could  stay  a  regiment. 
It  was  a  great  object  lesson  for  college  men  on  the 
value  of  equipment.  On  the  other  hand  we  learned 
that  the  most  impregnable  defense  was  made  of 
plain  dirt.  Dirt  trenches  dug  deep  enough  were 
better  than  the  steel  forts  of  Belgium.  Dirt 
trenches  lined  with  cement  were  more  wholesome 
places  to  live,  but  not  as  safe  as  dirt  trenches 
without  the  concrete.  The  machine  gun  is  an  in- 
tricate piece  of  mechanism,  and  the  United  States 
even  after  it  had  gone  to  war,  thought  it  necessary 
to  spend  some  months  deciding  what  kind  of  a 
machine   gun   to  manufacture.     It   could  not  be 

197 


Defining  the  College  Man 

picked  up  when  the  soldier  needed  it  on  a  moment's 
notice.  On  the  other  hand,  the  defensive  weapon 
of  the  dirt  trench  was  something  the  ordinary 
soldier  could  provide  himself  with  on  the  shortest 
notice.  Age  is  incHned  to  over-rate  the  value  of 
tools;  youth  is  inclined  to  under-rate  their  value. 
Some  colleges  neglect  the  provision  of  apparatus 
which  might  be  of  the  greatest  assistance  to  the 
students.  Others  go  to  the  other  extreme  and  pro- 
vide the  student  with  so  much  apparatus  and  with 
so  many  labor  saving  devices,  that  when  the 
student  is  thrown  into  the  practical  world,  he  is 
helpless.  The  greatest  discoveries  in  science  are 
not  always  made  in  the  best  appointed  labora- 
tories. In  determining  the  value  of  equipment  to 
the  college  man,  we  should  not  be  too  ready  to 
judge  it  by  its  intricacy.  A  hole  in  the  mud  may 
be  a  very  useful  weapon,  an  intricate  machine  gun 
may  also  be  a  useful  weapon,  but  neither  the  sim- 
plicity and  uncouthness  of  the  one,  the  intricacy 
and  novelty  of  the  other,  should  be  the  determining 
factor  in  determining  what  arms  to  lay  upon  the 
college  David  as  he  goes  forth  to  meet  the  defiance 
of  error  and  superstition.  But  time  is  passing, 
and  I  must  hurry  to  my  conclusion. 

Two  other  aspects  of  education  have  received 
emphasis  from  our  war  experience.  They  are  so 
obvious,  that  I  will  speak  but  briefly  of  each. 
First  is  the  importance  of  more  adequate  and  sys- 
tematic physical  training.  I  think  the  consensus 
of  opinion  is,  that  the  college  boy  who  went  to  a 
training  camp,  or  who  received  military  training 

198 


Defining  the  College  Man 

at  the  college  was  almost  invariably  a  better 
physical  animal  than  the  college  boy  of  peace 
times.  The  slouch  was  gone,  indifference  was 
gone  sluggishness  was  gone,  superfluous  fat  was 
gone,  reaction  followed  far  more  quickly  on 
stimuli.  If  the  mind  held  fewer  ideas,  the  body 
at  least  responded  more  promptly  to  the  few  the 
mind  had.  I  do  not  think  that  the  war  persuaded 
the  more  thoughtful  college  professors  that  mili- 
tary training  was  necessarily  the  solution  of  the 
problem  of  how  to  provide  the  student  with  a 
serviceable  physical  machine.  The  truth  of  the 
matter  is,  that  the  physical  machine  created  by 
military  training  was  not  a  very  serviceable 
machine  for  study.  The  physique  which  looked  so 
superb  was  in  the  class  room  likely  to  be  drowsy 
and  obtuse.  The  habits  formed  under  military 
training  and  the  appetites  created  in  the  bodily 
cells,  as  soon  as  the  student  reverted  from  the  oc- 
cupation of  soldier  to  the  occupation  of  student, 
gave  the  student  a  less  serviceable  physical 
machine  for  the  purposes  of  study  than  he  had  had 
before.  The  war  to  my  mind  did  not  solve  the 
problem  of  physical  education  for  the  student,  but 
it  did  undoubtedly  persuade  us  all  that  it  was  one 
of  the  problems  to  which  American  education  must 
promptly  address  itself,  and  I  am  convinced  that 
no  definition  of  the  ideal  college  man  will  be  ac- 
ceptable in  the  new  era  which  does  not  include  a 
prepossessing  physique  and  carriage,  one  which 
shall  be  serviceable  to  the  student  and  expressive 

199 


Defining  the  College  Man 

at  the  same  time  of  that  grace  and  mastery  of 
mind  over  body  which  it  must  be  an  important 
function  of  a  true  education  to  create. 

Finally,  our  definition  of  the  ideal  college  man 
will  be  affected  by  the  lesson  taught  by  the  war, 
that  emotion  matters.  If  you  talk  to  an  army  man 
he  would  not  call  it  emotion,  but  morale.  By 
morale  I  understand  not  only  what  a  man  thinks, 
but  how  he  feels  about  what  he  thinks.  This  as- 
pect of  the  mental  life  of  men  has  been  sadly 
neglected  by  our  American  colleges  the  last  few 
years.  In  fact  the  scientist  has  been  trjang  to 
persuade  us  that  we  should  have  no  emotions  as 
students,  unless  possibly  the  consuming  fire  of  de- 
votion to  truth.  It  is  because  of  this  low  rating 
of  emotion  that  religion  and  w^orship  have  been 
receiving  such  scant  recognition  in  the  college  cur- 
ricula of  the  last  tAventy-five  years.  As  our  psy- 
chology^ has  been  weak  in  its  analysis  of  will,  so 
it  has  been  weak  also  in  its  analysis  and  knowledge 
of  emotion.  I  think  our  more  thoughtful  college 
professors  have  come  out  of  the  war  with  the  con- 
viction that  in  some  way  we  must  see  to  it  that  our 
college  men  preserve  and  develop  throughout 
their  college  course,  the  capacity  of  feeling  deeply 
and  of  admiring  whole-heartedly  and  profoundly. 
We  owe  it  to  our  Greek  letter  fraternities  that  they 
at  least  in  the  barren  years  just  passing  have 
stressed  the  value  of  human  emotion  as  manifested 
in  ties  of  friendly  fellowship.  We  owe  it  to  our 
Y.  M.  C.  A.'s  that  they  have  found  a  place  for  the 

200 


Defining  the  College  Man 

cultivation  of  emotion  in  religion  through  expres- 
sion. We  owe  it  to  our  athletics,  however  little 
they  have  contributed  to  the  physical  development 
of  the  students  in  the  bleachers,  that  at  least  they 
have  furnished  an  opportunity  for  the  develop- 
ment of  their  emotional  qualities  through  expres- 
sion. However  weak  William  James's  psychol- 
ogy of  emotion  is,  it  was  sound  in  this,  that  it 
taught  that  if  a  man  went  through  the  physical 
expression  of  anger,  he  could  gradually  arouse  in 
himself  the  emotion  of  anger.  If  he  went  through 
the  physical  expression  of  joy,  he  could  gradually 
arouse  in  himself  the  emotion  of  joy.  We  has^e 
then  this  much  of  a  key  to  the  solution  of  the  prob- 
lem of  how  we  may  cultivate  and  enrich  the  emo- 
tional content  of  a  man's  life. 

Lord  Fisher  said  a  very  wise  thing  in  Parlia- 
ment the  other  day  in  discussing  the  proposition 
to  create  a  commission  to  survey  the  universities 
of  Great  Britain.  Universities,  he  said,  are  not 
the  outgrowth  of  commissions,  but  of  a  great 
moral  purpose.  So  of  the  individual  student's 
emotional  life,  if  we  would  see  it  develop  properly, 
we  must  preserve  in  the  curriculum  and  in  the 
heart  of  the  individual  man  a  great  moral  pur- 
pose. Because  of  our  common  Presbyterianism, 
I  may  say  to  you  of  Davidson,  as  I  say  to  the  men 
of  Lafayette,  that  you  cannot  have  complete  edu- 
cation and  you  cannot  define  your  ideal  college 
man  with  religion  left  out.  Call  it  what  you 
please,  every  man  rates  things  according  to 
some  scale  of  value,  and  the  thing  he  places  at  the 

201 


Defining  the  College  Man 

top,  the  thing  to  which  he  gives  the  right  of  way, 
he  worships  as  his  God.  Not  only  what  our  men 
think  about,  not  only  what  they  know,  but  how  they 
feel  about  what  they  think,  is  an  essential  question 
for  the  education  of  to-morrow. 

With  the  objective  defined,  with  patient  prepa- 
ration and  advance  well  timed,  with  tools  valued 
only  for  their  efficiency,  with  a  body  ready  to  func- 
tion gracefully  and  effectively  for  the  work  in 
hand,  and  with  the  soul  aflame  with  a  divine  fire, 
the  college  man  will  go  forth  into  the  new  era  and 
furnish  the  wise,  efficient  leadership  which  de- 
mocracy so  greatly  needs.  Gradually  our  loved 
America  is  ridding  itself  of  the  tyranny  of  things. 
We  think  of  the  state  as  an  organization  not  of 
property,  but  of  persons.  Labor  has  shortened 
its  hours  of  labor  and  says  to  the  colleges,  w^e  have 
leisure  now  for  making  men,  give  us  the  pattern 
by  which  to  work.  The  ideals  of  our  colleges 
matter  as  never  before  in  the  world  of  to-day.  I 
know  you  all,  whether  as  alumni  or  students,  teach- 
ers or  benefactors,  will  share  in  helping  to  ade- 
quately redefine  the  ideal  college  man  of  America. 


202 


THE  COLLEGE  MAN  AND  FREEDOM 

'HERE  is  an  old  hymn  beginning, 

"When  I  can  read  my  title  clear  i 

To  mansions  in  the  skies, 
I  bid  farewell  to  every  fear, 

And  wipe  my  weeping  eyes." 

This  college  opening  is  notable  in  that  for  the 
first  time  the  university  welcomes  its  students  at 
University  Heights  to  a  campus  the  title  to  which 
is  absolutely  free  from  every  incumbrance.  At 
the  close  of  these  exercises  I  shall  hand  to  the 
president  of  the  Student  Organization  the  univer- 
sity's bond  for  $500,000,  which  has  outlived  both 
its  signers — William  A.  Wheelock  and  Israel  C. 
Pierson — for  complete  annihilation.  Through  the 
generosity  of  the  late  John  S.  Kennedy,  the  uni- 
versity was  enabled  to  pay  the  mortgage  on  the 
University  Heights  property  in  August,  and  to- 
day dedicates  anew  this  campus  to  the  permanent 
service  of  higher  education,  in  the  hope  that  it  may 
forever  hereafter  be  held  sacred  for  this  purpose 
and  never  again  be  jeopardized  by  debt. 

This  final  payment  on  the  University  Heights 
property  comes  as  a  most  fitting  and  appropriate 


Address  at  the  opening  of  the  College  of  Arts  and  Pure  Science 
and  School  of  Applied  Science  of  New  York  University,  Univer- 
sity Heights,  September,  1910. 

203 


The  College  Man  and  Freedom 

final  act  in  the  administration  of  the  chancellor 
whose  term  of  office  terminates  on  this  his  seven- 
tieth birthday.  If  there  is  an  appropriateness  in 
the  final  paj^ment  on  the  property  being  made  by 
the  money  from  Mr.  Kennedy  because  the  doors 
of  his  house  were  the  first  to  be  opened  for  the 
fostering  of  the  uptown  project,  it  is  also  a  con- 
summation more  gratifying  than  the  fates  often 
accord  that  the  retiring  chancellor  should  have 
the  satisfaction  of  leaving  arduous  w^ork  begun 
twenty  j'ears  ago  so  perfected.  You  students  of 
University  Heights,  who,  like  myself,  have  known 
him  most  intimately  these  last  years,  know  how 
this  home  of  the  college — true  child  of  his  owii 
spirit — held  a  foremost  place  in  his  affections  and 
absorbed  the  deepest  emotions  of  his  heart.  It 
has  been  given  to  few^  men  to  leave  so  marked  an 
impression  of  his  personality  on  forty  acres  of 
New  York  land.  This  campus  w^ll  remain  through 
generations  an  enduring  monument  to  his  sagacity 
and  unsparing  devotion.  Beginning  wdth  the 
staking  of  his  whole  bank  account  on  the  original 
option,  the  felling  of  the  forest  and  the  grading 
of  the  streets,  the  securing  of  a  railroad  station, 
post  office  and  telegraph  station,  the  moving  and 
remo\dng  of  the  temporary  buildings  and  the 
athletic  field,  when  the  munificence  of  Miss  Gould 
made  possible  a  larger  campus  than  was  originally 
planned,  through  the  erection  of  this  Library 
Building  and  the  Hall  of  Fame  and  finally  to  the 
amendment  of  the  city  map  to  protect  the  trees  on 
the  Schwab  Estate  and  render  more  beautiful  the 

204 


The  College  Man  and  Freedom 

southern  approach — every  detail  has  had  his  per- 
sonal attention  and  every  foot  of  soil  bears  his 
footprint.  It  comes  to  you  students  of  the  College 
and  School  of  Applied  Science  as  a  city  university 
campus  without  rival  in  natural  beauty.  Nowhere 
within  the  city  limits  could  the  site  be  duplicated 
to-day.  Tracts  of  forty  acres  protected  from  di- 
vision by  streets  by  the  city  charter  are  hard  to 
find.  Forty  acres  on  the  top  of  a  hill  with  a  view 
of  two  rivers  and  the  Sound  and  yet  level  enough 
to  be  adapted  to  the  requirements  of  a  college 
witliout  great  expense,  is  a  unique  possession. 
New  York  is  so  immense  that  the  present  genera- 
tion has  not  yet  come  to  realize  what  a  cause  for 
municipal  pride  it  has  in  this  university  campus. 
Perhaps  with  the  increased  use  of  airships  this 
green  oasis  will  more  often  attract  the  attention  of 
New  Yorkers  than  its  neighbor  Woodlawn,  in  the 
number  of  its  quarter-million-dollar  buildings. 
The  property  is,  as  I  have  said,  to-day  free  from 
every  outside  incumbrance.  More  than  that,  the 
entire  campus  is  held  by  the  university  free  from 
any  conditions  except  the  condition  that  some 
portion  of  the  Schwab  Estate  shall  always  be  de- 
voted to  woman 's  working  and  living.  It  bears  no 
donor's  name  and,  as  the  chancellor  pointed  out 
in  his  commencement  address  of  a  year  ago,  ' '  The 
University  is  not  under  contract  to  do  anything 
whatsoever  which  the  ideal  university  of  America 
ought  not  to  undertake.  No  political  interest,  no 
business  trust,  no  economic  theory,  no  denomina- 
tional creed,  no  race,  no  territory,  not  even  New 

205 


The  Collesie  Man  and  Freedom 


'to 


York  City  itself,  can  make  any  legal  claim  upon 
it."  In  its  freedom  from  obligation,  the  campus 
is  a  type  of  the  American  college  student.  To-day 
you  men  of  the  entering  class  step  into  the  free- 
dom of  your  manhood.  Legally,  you  are  not  of 
age  and  still  subject  to  your  parents'  control  and, 
under  the  old  theory  of  college  government,  "more 
honored  now  in  the  breach  than  in  the  observ- 
ance," this  legal  and  moral  right  of  control  is 
from  this  day  delegated  by  your  parents  to  the 
college  faculty.  Indeed,  the  American  system  of 
education  differs  chiefly  from  that  of  Germany  in 
providing  a  transitional  institution  in  which  the 
strict  control  of  the  secondary  school  shall  give 
place  gradually  to  the  complete  freedom  of  the  uni- 
versity, in  which,  indeed,  according  to  the  genius 
of  our  whole  social  sj^stem,  men  shall  learn  to 
govern  themselves.  There  are  in  America  still 
two  systems  of  educating  man  for  self-government 
and  each  has  its  strong  adherents.  The  one  sys- 
tem, that  takes  as  its  motto  the  old  maxim  that  a 
man  learns  to  rule  by  learning  to  obey,  is  the  sys- 
tem which  finds  its  best  exemplification  and 
strongest  argument  in  our  national  academies  at 
West  Point  and  Annapolis,  and  the  general  senti- 
ment of  the  country  seems  to  be  that  the  system  is 
justified  by  its  fruits.  The  other  system  is  the 
true  child  of  democracy.  It  is  one  of  the  glories 
of  the  world's  great  universities  that  they  tend  to 
be  democratic  within  themselves  whatever  may  be 
their  attitude  toward  the  world  at  large.  The 
theory  of  this  system  of  training  men  for  self^ 

206 


The  College  Man  and  Freedom 

government  is  to  minimize  restraint  from  with- 
out the  student  body,  whether  exercised  by  a 
parent,  a  faculty,  a  dean,  or  other  disciplinary 
officer,  and  to  leave  the  individual  free  to  follow 
the  promptings  of  his  own  spirit  subject  to  the 
restraints  imposed  upon  him  by  the  presence  of 
other  men  of  like  age  and  passions  with  himself, 
also  free  to  follow  the  promptings  of  their  spirits. 
The  result  of  this  system  has  been  the  growth  of  a 
democratic  form  of  government  within  the  student 
body  itself  and,  as  happened  in  the  pure  democ- 
racy of  New  England  town  meetings,  this  demo- 
cratic form  of  student  government  has  ventured 
to  extremes  in  regulation  of  private  conduct  which 
no  external  authority  would  have  attempted.  You 
gentlemen  of  the  entering  class  will  find  here  at 
University  Heights  two  governments.  There  is 
the  government  of  the  faculty,  which  is  set  forth 
in  the  printed  rules,  a  copy  of  which  each  of  you 
should  have  received,  in  which  you  will  find  not 
only  the  legal  and  theoretical  government  of  the 
college,  but  also  a  very  real  government  clothed 
with  sufficient  power  to  execute  its  statutes  should 
you  make  the  mistake,  which  some  students  have 
made,  of  supposing  that  faculty  government  was 
like  the  tonsils  or  the  vermiform  appendix — a 
heritage  from  a  former  life  with  no  immediate 
function,  but  you  will  discover  also  that  in  the  free 
democracy  allowed  and  fostered  by  this  faculty 
government,  there  has  grown  up  a  subsidiary  gov- 
ernment with  its  own  laws  and  executives.  In  this 
institution,  the  government  is  known  as  the  Stu- 

207 


The  College  Man  and  Freedom 

dont  Organization.  It  is  not,  however,  a  condition 
peculiar  to  this  institution.  Throughout  the 
United  States  we  find  this  disposition  of  the  stu- 
dent body,  given  originally  individual  freedom, 
to  organize  themselves  to  render  effective  the 
wishes  of  the  stronger  leaders  or  it  may  be  of  the 
majority.  Beginning  with  the  common  bond  of 
interest  in  athletics,  holding  mass  meetings  for 
training  in  cheering  and  in  chorus  singing,  these 
organizations  have  little  by  little  enlarged  their 
scope  until  they  exercise  an  important  control  in 
all  the  internal  affairs  of  college  life.  I  believe 
in  the  fostering  and  encouragement  of  such  an 
organization  and  that  steps  should  be  taken  by  the 
faculties  to  keep  in  touch  with  its  activities  and 
to  utilize  the  agency  as  the  most  effective  means 
of  student  control.  The  existence  of  this  form  of 
government,  however,  will  bring  to  the  entering 
student  new  and  serious  questions. 

As  I  have  said,  you  have  entered  to-day  upon  a 
life  which  has  been  freed  from  many  of  the  old 
restrictions.  There  will  be  a  time  schedule  to  be 
followed  and  tasks  to  be  performed  and  appropri- 
ate penalties  will  follow  the  failure  to  observe 
these  restrictions,  but  there  is  no  such  exactness 
or  narrowness  to  these  requirements  as  confront 
the  average  young  man  leaving  his  home  or  leav- 
ing the  high  school  to  go  into  business.  Of  all 
groups  in  our  modern  civilization,  college  students 
are  the  one  too  free  from  restriction,  is  the  ver- 
dict which  is  gradually  formulating  itself  as  we 
examine  the  product  of  the  last  twenty-five  years, 

208 


The  College  Man  and  Freedom 

and  as  a  result  there  has  been  a  general  tightening 
of  screws  in  all  institutions  the  last  year  or  so, 
but  so  far  as  I  know,  there  has  been  no  wide  dis- 
position to  substitute  for  the  system  of  self-se- 
lected activity  the  system  of  routine  strictly  con- 
trolled from  without,  such  as  exists  at  West  Point. 
As  we  continue  to  believe  in  democracy  with  all 
its  failures  as  a  more  worthy  form  of  government 
for  free  men  than  monarchy,  so  we  continue  to 
believe  that  sooner  or  later  the  life  of  every  edu- 
cated man  must  be  directed  from  within  and  that 
freedom,  therefore,  is  essential  for  that  most  im- 
portant of  all  college  lessons,  the  lesson  of  self- 
direction.  The  Faculty,  therefore,  welcome  you 
to-day  to  a  life  which,  so  far  as  the  faculty  are 
concerned,  has  been  made  freer  from  outside  re- 
striction than  you  will  find  elsewhere  in  life. 
Probably  this  accords  with  your  view  of  college 
life  and  you  have  come  to  college  expecting  to  find 
and  to  enjoy  to  the  full  this  freedom.  You  will 
perhaps,  therefore,  be  somewhat  surprised  early 
in  your  course  to  find  your  freedom  restricted  by 
men,  who,  like  yourselves,  looked  forward  to  the 
pleasures  of  the  freedom  of  college  life.  You  will 
find  college  customs  and  college  sentiment  con- 
solidated in  a  strong  student  organization.  You 
will  find  that  this  organization,  deriving  its  powers 
from  the  consent  of  the  governed,  enforces  rules 
which  seem  to  the  outsider  to  interfere  to  an  un- 
warranted extent  with  the  rights  of  the  individual. 
Indeed,  there  will  doubtless  be  some  of  you,  who, 
not  on  any  grounds  of  political  economy  or  be- 

209 


The  Collese  Man  and  Freedom 


t) 


cause  of  any  theory  \vliich  you  may  hold  regard- 
lUii;  the  rii^-hts  ami  duties  of  a  democracy,  but 
purely  for  personal  reasons,  will  regard  these 
rules  as  iniquitous  tyranny.  You  will  begin  then 
the  consideration  of  a  problem  which,  in  its  vari- 
ous aspects,  will  confront  and  puzzle  you  through 
life  or  at  least  as  long  as  your  intellect  remains 
active  and  until  you  begin  to  go  without  inquiry 
in  a  rut  of  convention.  That  question  deals  with 
the  relative  spheres  of  individual  and  social  ac- 
tivity. Of  the  things  which  I  do,  of  the  thoughts 
which  I  think,  how  much  of  my  life  shall  I  live  by 
myself  and  in  my  own  way  and  w^hat  things  shall 
I  do  and  w^hat  thoughts  shall  I  think  and  how  much 
of  my  life  shall  I  live  after  a  fashion  which  repre- 
sents the  resulting  compromise  of  many  minds 
and  many  wills? 

College  life  as  now"  organized  tends  to  develop 
the  social  side  of  the  individualistic  student  prob- 
ably more  than  it  tends  to  make  a  strong  person- 
alitj''  of  the  student  of  social  impulses.  There  is 
a  criticism  which  seems  to  hold  equally  against 
democracy  in  the  state  and  democracy  in  the  stu- 
dent body — that  democracy  does  not  want  excep- 
tional men,  does  not  create  them  and,  when  possi- 
ble, destroys  them.  The  birth  of  genius  is  a 
thing  with  which  a  university  has  little  to  do.  The 
university  does  its  part  if  it  affords  genius  its 
opportunity,  and  to  this  end  equality  of  opportun- 
ity must  be  forever  the  first  principle  of  college 
democracy.  If,  however,  college  democracy,  as 
manifested  in  its  student  organization,  defeats  the 

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The  College  Man  and  Freedom 

ends  of  freedom  by  exacting  of  all  a  similar  rou- 
tine, it  will  be  doing  all  it  can  to  minimize  the 
number  of  great  men.  Thus,  for  example,  while 
the  requirement  of  a  similar  hat  for  all  freshmen 
may  not  interfere  with  the  development  of  any 
freshman's  peculiar  genius,  I  am  not  sure  that  to 
make  universal  a  rule  requiring  freshmen  to  con- 
tribute a  certain  amount  of  personal  service  to 
the  welfare  of  an  athletic  team  may  not  interfere 
with  the  proper  development  of  some  freshman 
whose  genius  lies  in  another  direction.  Just  as 
we  are  still  seeking  in  vain  any  exact  definition  of 
what  the  liberally  educated  man  should  know,  so 
we  are  without  any  exact  definition  of  the  social 
life  and  activities  in  which  all  educated  men 
should  participate.  We  have  come  to  a  time  in 
our  civic  and  national  life  when  men  have  found 
their  personal  activities  and  their  most  cherished 
desires  set  at  naught  by  powers  outside  them- 
selves too  strong  for  the  individual  to  wrestle  with 
successfully.  Many  of  the  strongest  believers  in 
freedom,  therefore,  have  joined  hands  to  restrict 
the  freedom  of  others  and  have  limited  their  own 
freedom  in  so  doing.  "We  shall  see  in  the  next 
few  years  great  clashes  between  those  who  believe 
in  as  little  government  as  possible  and  those  who 
believe  in  nothing  but  government. 

As  a  preparation  for  the  solution  of  these 
questions,  I  ask  you,  especially  the  juniors  and 
seniors,  to  give  thoughtful  consideration  to  the 
problems  of  a  democracy  in  our  college  community. 
I  was  impressed  by  the  fact  at  the  last  commenoe- 

211 


The  College  Man  and  Freedom 


to 


iiioiit  that  whereas  in  former  days  college  grad- 
uates in  their  commencement  orations  solved  the 
problems  of  the  nation,  at  the  last  commencement 
all  the  orations  discussed  the  problems  of  the 
college  itself.  It  is,  I  believe,  a  wholesome  sign 
when  reform  begins  thus  at  home.  I  ask  you  to 
consider  how  far  government  by  the  crowd  can  go 
^\'ithout  becoming  tyranny.  I  ask  you  to  consider 
what  are  the  minimum  rights  of  the  individual 
which  it  is  expedient  for  the  community  that  the 
majority  should  hold  sacred.  I  ask  you  freshmen 
to  consider  when  submission  to  organized  society 
is  a  virtue  and  when  insurgency  becomes  incum- 
bent. I  ask  you  to  test  here  in  your  college  de- 
mocracy your  theories  of  political  party  regularity 
and  insurgency.  I  ask  you  to  view  the  college 
community  as  it  would  be  viewed  by  a  member  of 
some  other  college  democracy  and  ask  yourself 
what  it  requires  to  make  it  notable  and  give  it 
high  rank  among  communities.  Will  it  rank  high- 
est if  all  its  men  are  alike  and  do  things  in  a  con- 
ventional way  or  will  it  rank  higher  if  it  finds 
room  for  unusual  men;  if  it  encourages  individ- 
uality and  variety ;  if  it  finds  room  for  the  hermit 
as  well  as  the  social  leader;  if  it  suspends  judg- 
ment on  the  ultimate  contribution  of  the  mystic 
as  compared  with  that  of  the  athlete ;  the  man  who 
makes  a  perfect  recitation  with  that  of  the  man 
w^ho  is  so  interested  reading  in  the  library  that 
he  forgets  the  recitation  altogether.  I  ask  you  to 
make  impossible  the  charge  often  laid  at  the  door 
of  democracies  of  commonplaceness.     College  de- 

212 


The  College  Man  and  Freedom 

mocracy  will  always  be  quick  to  detect  uniqueness 
and  will  find  satisfaction  in  labeling  it  with  a  nick- 
name, but  when  you  have  given  it  a  name,  let  it 
go  at  that. 

When  I  entered  this  college  twenty  years  ago, 
1  was  fortunate  enough  to  enjoy  the  instruction 
of  a  very  able  teacher  of  English.  One  of  his 
favorite  dictums  has  been:  ''When  a  man  enters 
college  he  thinks  in  words.  After  a  time  he  may 
be  able  to  think  in  clauses  or  sentences  and  the 
exceptional  man  may  even  attain  to  thinking  in 
paragraphs."  I  trust  that  with  this  enlargement, 
which  goes  on  from  time  to  time  during  the 
college  course,  in  your  mental  capacities,  the 
critics  of  the  college  notwithstanding,  there  will 
come  a  broader  toleration  for  different  kinds  of 
men  and  that  your  imaginations  will  be  enlarged 
so  that  you  will  be  able  to  conceive  places  for  many 
kinds  in  a  college  democracy  and  will  so  shape 
your  student  government  that  it  may  be  free  from 
all  tyranny  toward  those  who  differ  from  the  aver- 
age man. 


213 


THE  AMERICAN  COLLEGE  OF  TO-DAY 

ANEW  era  is  beginning,  has  already  begun,  in 
the  life  of  our  American  colleges.  It  is 
hard  to  generalize,  for  a  country  with  such 
diverse  conditions  as  our  o^v^l,  because  standards 
of  wealth  and  standards  of  culture  and  ideals  of 
life  are  very  different,  in  Montana,  for  example, 
and  in  Massachusetts.  And  yet  the  intellectual 
life  of  our  nation  is  more  homogeneous  than  a 
stranger  would  suppose.  Inquiries  for  the  publi- 
cations of  a  graduate  school  are  as  likely  to 
come  from  Oregon  and  Minnesota  as  from  Con- 
necticut or  New  Jersey.  I  find  the  same  maga- 
zines and  books  on  sale  in  Cripple  Creek,  Colo- 
rado, as  on  Fifth  Avenue,  and  wdthin  the  same 
week.  The  newsboys  cry  the  same  issue  of  the 
same  weekly  on  the  same  Thursday  in  Seattle  as 
in  New  York  or  Savannah.  Newspaper  editorials 
and  contributions  supplied  to  chains  of  news- 
l)apers  appear  the  same  day  in  New  York,  Chicago, 
Denver  and  San  Francisco.  Indeed  the  middle 
sections  of  our  country  are  so  anxious  to  be 
abreast  of  the  times  that  they  begin  to  show  rest- 
lessness under  the  present  standard  time  system, 
which  puts  Cleveland  an  hour  behind  New  York, 
and  want  not  to  keep  up  with  the  sun  but  to  get 


Address   before  the  University  Club  of  Reading,  Pa.,   1915. 

214 


The  American  College  of  To-day 

ahead  of  it.  I  find  college  presidents  and  college 
professors  discussing  the  same  problems  in  Los 
Angeles,  Salt  Lake  City  and  Providence.  Na- 
tional organizations,  like  the  Carnegie  Founda- 
tion and  the  College  Entrance  Examination  Board, 
adopt  standards  and  definitions  which  they  apply 
to  the  whole  country.  The  Presbyterian  College 
Board,  of  which  I  am  president,  works  with  col- 
leges in  thirty-five  of  the  states,  from  the  Atlantic 
to  the  Pacific,  and  from  the  Lakes  to  the  Gulf, 
and  we  find  that  the  differences  in  social  and  eco- 
nomic status  between  sections  of  our  country  is 
no  greater  than  that  between  large  sections  of  the 
population  in  New  York  City,  while  in  intellectual 
aspirations  and  ideals  they  are  far  more  homo- 
geneous. With  due  allowance,  therefore,  for 
local  adaptations,  for  the  local  twist  of  dialect 
and  atmosphere,  we  are  justified  in  speaking  of 
national  eras  in  education,  of  country-wide  trends 
in  educational  thought. 

The  age  just  passing  has  been  an  age  of  enor- 
mous expansion  in  our  American  economic,  social 
and  intellectual  worlds.  Economically,  we  think 
to-day  in  millions  of  dollars,  when  a  generation 
ago  we  thought  in  thousands.  The  people  used 
to  think  the  man  with  a  million  or  two  stood  in 
the  king  row.  Now  they  know  he  is  only  a  pawn 
in  the  great  game  of  finance.  Socially,  we  think 
internationally.  A  generation  ago,  the  foreign 
tourist  returned  as  an  adventurer  from  strange 
lands.  Last  summer  we  discovered  Europe  to  be 
the  summer  resort  of  over  a  hundred  thousand 

215 


The  American  College  of  To-day 

Americans.  Tt  docs  not  seem  strange  any  more 
that  an  American  professor  should  run  over  to 
China  to  advise  the  government,  as  a  physician 
might  be  called  in  consultation  from  Philadelphia 
to  the  Hot  Springs ;  or  that  the  American  Ambas- 
sador resident  in  Berlin  should  be  a  candidate  at 
the  same  time  for  the  post  of  United  States  sen- 
ator from  New  York.  At  the  opera  I  sat  next  to 
a  young  American  girl  who  has  won  prizes  for  art 
in  Paris,  taught  for  some  years  cannibals  and 
dwarfs  in  Africa,  contributed  to  the  "Atlantic 
Monthly, ' '  and  who  is  equally  at  home  in  the  prim- 
itive African  jungle,  in  the  luxury  of  the  Metro- 
politan, or  in  the  ethereal  realms  of  the  ''  Atlantic 
Monthly."  A  college  professor  acts  as  United 
States  Minister  at  the  Hague,  a  university  presi- 
dent spends  a  sabbatical  year  as  our  Government 
representative  in  Greece,  another  tours  the  world 
in  the  interests  of  world  peace,  while  another 
spends  a  summer  vacation  establishing  cordial 
relations  with  Chili,  Peru,  and  the  Argentine  Ke- 
public.  We  are  exploring  just  as  fast  and  as  far 
intellectually  as  we  are  geographically.  Our  edu- 
cational horizon  is  no  less  sweeping  than  the  moral 
horizon  defined  in  the  commandment  as  "anything 
in  heaven  above,  in  the  earth  beneath,  or  in  the 
waters  under  the  earth."  It  is  only  necessary  to 
read  a  list  of  the  activities  of  the  Carnegie  Insti- 
tution at  Washington  to  see  how  our  interest  in 
the  physical  world  has  expanded.  Astronomy  is 
old,  old  as  David  and  the  wise  men  of  the  East, 
but  it  was  not  until  I  spent  a  night  in  that  modern 

216 


The  American  College  of  To-day 

monastery  on  top  of  Mount  Wilson  in  California 
last  spring,  that  I  realized  how  Science  was  call- 
ing accumulated  science  to  its  aid,  just  as  labor 
calls  accumulated  labor  to  its  aid  in  the  form  of 
capital,  to  help  it  in  its  work;  so  that  whereas  a 
generation  ago  astronomy  was  a  comparatively 
simple  affair  of  man  and  his  telescope  and  his 
mathematics,  now  it  is  a  matter  not  only  of  man 
increased  to  a  staff,  recruited  from  more  than  one 
country  and  working  in  relays,  of  telescopes  of 
various  kinds,  of  reflecting  mirrors  a  hundred 
inches  in  diameter,  mounted  on  steel  frames  weigh- 
ing tons  multiplied  by  tons,  dragged  for  miles  up 
specially  constructed  roads;  but  the  eye  that  sees 
is  no  longer  the  human  eye,  but  the  eye  of  the 
camera  plate,  the  eye  that  reads  is  the  eye  of  the 
microscope,  and  the  interpreter  of  the  dream  is  the 
magician  in  the  physics  laboratory  or  in  the  chem- 
ical laboratory,  miles  below  down  on  the  plain. 
Thus  equipped  the  astronomer  not  only  sees  the 
present  but  forecasts  the  future.  Not  content  with 
studying  Being,  the  world  as  it  is,  science,  like  the 
old  Greek  philosophies,  wants  to  know  Becoming 
also,  wants  to  see  things  grow,  wants  to  observe 
generation  succeeding  generation,  and  to  ascertain 
what  is  the  purpose  in  all  this  ceaseless  begetting, 
and  whether  it  can  be  influenced  by  the  will  of 
man.  And  so  the  scientist  sits  glued  to  his  micro- 
scope at  Wood's  Hole,  Cold  Spring,  and  many  a 
college  laboratory ;  and  the  young  instructor  chats 
with  his  wife,  if  he  is  so  fortunate  or  unfortunate 
as  to  have  one,  over  the  supper  table,  of  frogs, 

217 


The  American  College  of  To-day 

star-fish  and  earthworms,  while  she  makes  family 
pets  of  his  dogs  and  guinea-pigs. 

Or,  turning  from  the  physical  field  to  the  activi- 
ties of  man,  we  find  that  scientific  spirit,  going 
into  the  dusty  archives  at  Washington,  dragging 
out  long-forgotten  papers,  listing  them,  and  mak- 
ing card  catalogues  and  bibliographies;  so  that 
the  historian  and  statistician  may  speak,  not  by 
hearsay,  not  even  by  the  book,  but  by  the  very 
document  itself.  We  find  a  paper  like  "The  New 
York  Times"  spending  thousands  of  dollars  on 
cable  tolls,  and  giving  up  columns  of  space,  in 
order  that  any  man  may  possess  for  a  penny 
knowledge  which  no  chancellery  of  Europe  could 
buy  at  any  price  a  month  before. 

We  find  the  scientific  spirit  turning  to  the  prac- 
tical affairs  of  life,  to  the  field  which  has  hitherto 
been  known  as  the  practical  world,  in  distinction 
to  the  world  of  learning,  the  world  of  action  _as 
distinguished  from  the  w^orld  of  thought ;  and  writ- 
ing down  in  books  just  how  to  make  a  yard  of 
cloth,  how  to  sell  it  w^hen  made,  and  how  to  enter 
up  in  accounts  the  results  of  the  transaction. 
Business,  curiously  enough,  is  for  the  first  time 
beginning  to  be  found  in  books ;  w^e  are  inventing 
terms  and  classifications,  thus  enabling  us  to  think 
abstractly  of  its  phenomena,  and  to  enunciate  gen- 
eral principles  concerning  it,  and  to  make  it  a  part 
of  our  whole  scheme  of  knowledge  and  relate  it 
to  our  ethics,  our  politics,  our  economics,  as  Aris- 
totle tried  to  do,  in  what  seems  to  us  a  rather 
naive  way,  at  the  acme  of  Greek  learning. 

218 


The  American  College  of  To-day 

In  the  field  of  government,  again,  the  thinker  is 
at  work.  When  I  began  teaching  Municipal  Gov- 
ernment, you  could  count  on  your  fingers  all  the 
books  in  English  worth  reading  on  the  subject. 
Now,  hardly  a  week  passes  without  the  issue  of  a 
new  one,  many  of  them  scientific  and  scholarly. 

Even  that  most  complex  of  sciences,  housekeep- 
ing, is  being  put  into  a  book,  and  probably  is  as 
little  able  to  recognize  herself  as  the  rural  char- 
acter who  found  herself  in  a  novel.  We  have 
books  on  sewing,  and  in  spite  of  all  the  stitches 
taken  since  the  world  began,  it  is  hard  to  put  sew- 
ing into  a  book.  Mrs.  Jessup,  Director  of  Sew- 
ing in  the  New  York  City  Schools,  once  told  me 
that  while  many  teachers  could  sew,  hardly  one 
could  make  a  diagram  to  illustrate  any  special 
kind  of  stitch. 

And  so,  through  all  the  world  of  practical  life, 
where  we  have  had  ability  to  do  things  but  have 
not  known,  like  the  good  cook,  how  we  do  them, 
man  the  thinking  animal,  having  a  little  leisure 
here  in  America  because  of  the  natural  wealth  of 
a  new  country,  and  the  blessing  of  international 
peace,  and  a  good  deal  of  that  native  Yankee  curi- 
osity which  ''wants  to  know,"  and  whose  favorite 
expletive  is  "Do  tell,"  is  taking  up  one  by  one  the 
various  activities  of  men  and  women,  is  describ- 
ing, analyzing,  naming,  putting  into  books.  Now 
all  this  expansion  in  our  national  life,  economic, 
social  and  intellectual,  has  necessarily  found  ex- 
pression in  the  life  and  organization  of  our  col- 
leges.    In  fact,  they  are  responsible  for  a  good 

219 


The  American  College  of  To-day 

deal  of  it,  and  like  the  boy  who  touches  off  the 
lirocracker,  not  suiprised  that  it  has  happened, 
only  surprised  that  the  noise  and  reverberations 
are  so  much  greater  than  they  had  supposed. 

The  old-time  curriculum,  Greek,  Latin  and 
^lathcmatics,  which  in  my  o^v^l  college  days  had 
only  begun  to  show  signs  of  cracking,  has  in  the 
process  been  blo^^^l  to  pieces;  or  if  the  fuse  has 
burned  out,  has  left  an  institution  which  is  about 
as  useful  and  promising  as  a  firecracker  without 
a  fuse. 

What  Physics  began.  Chemistry  and  Biology 
completed.  English  once  firmly  planted  in  the 
fort  has  helped  in  her  allies.  History,  Politics, 
Sociology ;  while  Psychology  has  assumed  the  role 
of  mediator,  between  the  insurgent  sciences  on 
the  one  side  and  the  completed  philosophy  of  man, 
life  and  civilization,  which  long  held  sway.  War, 
how^ever,  is  in  itself  never  profitable.  Times  of 
transition  are  times  of  opportunity;  they  are 
rarely  times  of  satisfaction.  Ships  without  rud- 
ders don't  make  very  good  headway.  It  is  what 
we  believe,  as  Carlyle  points  out,  not  what  we 
doubt,  that  gives  us  life.  When  machinery  comes 
in,  the  hand  weaver  finds  it  hard  to  adapt  him- 
self to  new  conditions.  When  the  automobile  re- 
places the  horse,  some  coachmen  learn  to  be  chauf- 
feurs, others  starve. 

And  so  the  expansion  which  has  been  taking 
place  in  the  college  world,  while  tremendously  in- 
teresting and  stimulating,  has  brought  along  with 
it  a  great  deal  of  waste  and  wreckage,  and  we 

220 


The  American  College  of  To-day 

are  anxious  to  get  back  to  more  settled  times. 
The  result  is,  that  here  and  there  you  will  find 
the  curriculum  builder  again  at  work,  trying  to 
gather  up  the  experience  of  the  generation  of 
college  boys  just  passing,  for  the  benefit  of  the 
generations  to  come;  and  if  we  have  any  faith 
in  knowledge  at  all,  we  must  believe  that  it  is 
just  this  which  we  ought  to  do,  and  that  it  can  be 
done.  "We  wonder  why  American  youth  does  not 
have  a  deeper  reverence  for  learning.  There  are 
many  answers  to  the  question.  But  surely  if  the, 
college  professor  who  spends  his  whole  life  teach- 
ing boys,  who  watches  them  after  graduation,  and 
teaches  their  sons  after  them,  cannot  generalize  to 
the  extent  of  naming  at  least  some  of  the  things 
which  the  prospective  preacher,  la^\^er,  physician 
ought  to  study,  there  is  good  reason  for  the  Amer- 
ican inclination  to  rank  native  wit  above  the 
knowledge  of  the  expert.  I  believe,  therefore,  that 
the  curriculum  builders  have  taken  up  an  import- 
ant task,  and  that  we  should  follow  and,  so  far  as 
possible,  participate  in  the  experiments  which  are 
being  made  in  that  direction. 

The  past  era,  however,  has  been  a  time  of  ex- 
pansion in  other  aspects  of  college  life,  besides 
that  of  the  content  of  courses.  Student  bodies 
have  growTi  so  that  the  number  which  fills  the 
small  college  to-day  would  have  satisfied  the  uni- 
versity a  generation  ago.  Buildings  have  in- 
creased sevenfold.  Provision  for  the  student  has 
kept  pace  with  the  demand  for  conveniences  in 
the  modern  home.     Only  last  June  I  spent  a  night 

221 


The  American  College  of  To-day 

in  the  dormitories  at  Princeton,  and  had  an  op- 
port  nnity  to  compare  the  old  dormitories  with 
their  double-deck  beds,  water  no  nearer  the  fourth 
floor  than  the  basement,  with  the  luxury  of  the 
new  Graduate  College,  with  its  suites  of  bedroom, 
sitting-room,  entry  and  private  bath. 

College  presidents,  college  trustees,  college 
alumni  are  to-day,  however,  confronted  with  a 
clear-cut  alternative,  which  is  this :  shall  we  seek 
success  in  terms  of  quantity  or  of  quality;  shall 
we  seek  popular  applause  or  discriminating  ap- 
proval? To  maintain  a  college  of  liberal  arts  and 
pure  science  or  a  technological  school  of  high 
grade  is  expensive,  relatively  far  more  expensive 
than  in  the  last  generation.  We  know  now  pretty 
accurately  just  how  expensive  a  good  college  is. 
For  the  first  time  in  the  history  of  colleges,  a  com- 
mittee has  sat  do^\TL  with  a  pencil,  and  put  down 
in  black  and  white  the  minimum  cost  at  which  a 
college  can  be  maintained  at  all.  They  have  put 
down  also  what  the  cost  would  be  were  the  best 
of  everything  combined  in  one  institution,  and 
they  have  supported  these  estimates  by  figures 
from  colleges  actually  in  operation.  The  report 
was  presented  for  the  first  time  at  the  meeting 
held  in  Chicago  last  month,  to  organize  the  Asso- 
ciation of  American  Colleges.  We  are  safe  to 
say,  therefore,  that  a  college  of  the  highest  grade 
requires  three  million  dollars ;  a  million  dollars  in 
grounds,  building  and  equipment,  and  two  million 
dollars  in  productive  endowment.  Technological 
schools  are  still  more  expensive.    The  great  in- 

222 


The  American  College  of  To-day 

flux  of  students  which  began  sweeping  into  the  col- 
leges twenty-five  years  ago,  because  of  the  great 
expansion  in  wealth  and  the  social  prestige  given 
by  college  education  is  somewhat  receding,  or 
being  diverted  to  more  specialized  schools.  Pros- 
pective students  of  medicine  twenty-five  years  ago 
who  had  six  years  to  give  to  study  beyond  the 
high  school,  could  give  four  to  the  college  and  two 
to  the  medical  school,  because  that  was  all  the 
medical  school  demanded.  Now  the  medical  school 
demands  four  or  five  years,  and  there  is  a  disposi- 
tion, therefore,  to  leave  the  college  at  the  end  of 
the  second  year.  To  meet  the  increasing  pres- 
sure, and  make  it  possible  for  the  professional 
man  to  begin  at  an  earlier  age,  all  sorts  of  short 
cuts  have  been  devised.  At  the  same  time,  col- 
leges have  been  multiplied.  The  States  have 
opened  their  treasuries,  and  college  education  has 
been  made  free.  High  schools  have  improved 
their  curricula  and  strengthened  their  courses,  so 
that  the  boy  learns  in  high  school  much  of  what 
he  formerly  learned  in  college ;  and  as  the  high 
schools  have  pushed  up  from  below,  the  universi- 
ties have  let  down  their  nets  from  above,  and  en- 
couraged the  student  to  take  a  combined  course 
in  the  university  college  and  university  profes- 
sional school. 

The  college  then,  feeling  the  tide  sweeping  out 
rather  than  rolling  in,  asks :  what  must  we  do  to 
be  saved;  what  must  we  do  for  success?  The 
temptation  is  to  meet  the  free  tuition  of  state 
institutions  and  the  competition  of  other  colleges, 

223 


The  American  College  of  To-day 

by  waiving  tuition  charges,  by  unduly  multiply- 
ing scholarships,  in  order  that  numbers  may  be 
maintained  at  any  cost.  Another  temptation  is 
to  offer  cheaper  lines  of  goods,  or  as  the  news- 
papers say — to  give  the  public  what  they  demand, 
meaning  what  will  command  the  largest  circula- 
tion. Summer  schools  without  entrance  examina- 
tions, short  courses  for  teachers,  courses  in  com- 
merce and  finance  are  multiplied  because  they  in- 
crease the  number  of  students,  because  the  public 
wants  them,  and  because  they  come  nearer  paying 
their  way ;  while  Greek,  if  maintained  at  all,  is 
maintained  as  an  expensive  luxury  for  a  select  few, 
and  Latin  shrivels  from  a  four-year  subject  to  a 
two-year  one.  The  alternative  which  confronts 
the  colleges  is  not  one,  however,  which  is  peculiar 
to  education.  It  is  one  which  confronts  the  busi- 
ness-man and  the  literary  man  quite  as  truly  as 
the  educational  administrator.  An  established 
business  which  finds  its  clientele  diminishing  in  a 
given  location  and  with  a  given  class  of  goods 
maj^  do  one  of  several  things.  It  may  resolve  to 
remain  in  the  same  location,  but  to  cheapen  its 
grade  of  goods ;  and  to  use  the  prestige  of  the  past 
to  attract  a  new  and  larger  patronage  of  a  lower 
grade.  It  may  be  successful  in  this,  if  it  adver- 
tises wisely,  buys  closely,  and  sells  on  very  narrow 
margins  of  profit.  Or  it  may  go  on,  according  to 
the  precedents  of  the  past  century,  selling  high- 
grade  goods  to  a  constantly  decreasing  number  of 
patrons,  while  its  trade  dwindles  and  finally  dis- 
appears.    Or  it  may  ask  itself — what  and  where 

224 


The  American  College  of  To-day 

do  the  people  buy  who  formerly  bought  here,  what 
is  it  they  want,  and  what  do  they  pay  for  it? 
And  if  it  finds  them  preferring  a  new  location, 
more  convenient  methods,  costlier  goods,  more 
luxurious  shops,  along  with  a  willingness  to  pay 
a  higher  price  for  all  these  things,  the  business 
man,  if  daring  and  progressive  enough,  may  enter 
the  new  field,  increase  his  capital,  incur  larger  ex- 
pense, and  succeed  or  fail,  according  to  the  sagac- 
ity and  diligence  which  guide  the  venture. 

So  with  a  newspaper,  when  confronted  with  the 
question  of  remaining  a  three  cent  or  two  cent 
paper,  or  becoming  a  one  cent  paper,  and  seeking 
a  larger  circulation  at  the  expense  of  selectness 
and  dignity. 

So  with  the  author,  when  confronted  with  the 
alternative  of  writing  a  novel  which  will  have  an 
enormous  circulation  at  once,  or  a  novel  which  will 
take  three  or  four  times  as  long  to  write  and  will 
take  three  or  four  times  as  long  to  win  its  way. 

In  these  dilemmas  there  is  no  practical  rule  to 
guide,  no  maxim  of  experience.  It  may  be  pos- 
sible to  have  a  paper  for  one  cent,  quite  as  good 
in  quality  as  the  three  cent  paper,  and  with  the 
advantage  of  larger  circulation  besides.  It  may 
be  that  the  novel  or  the  play  written  to  meet  the 
popular  appeal  will  have  so  much  of  eternal  hu- 
manity in  it,  that  it  will  live  and  become  a  classic. 
It  may  prove  that  the  course  instituted  by  the 
college  as  a  pot-boiler  will  reveal  an  unexpected 
need  in  the  community,  and  contribute  something 
valuable   to  human  progress.     But  because  the 

225 


The  American  College  of  To-day 

temptation  is  to  seek  immediate  success,  rather 
than  to  endure  the  privations  and  obscurity  which 
is  the  lot  of  most  idealists,  college  presidents,  col- 
lege alumni,  college  trustees  will  do  well  to  be  on 
their  guard  against  the  alternative  which  prom- 
ises the  quickest  returns.  We  must  believe  that 
in  a  moral  universe,  the  good  and  the  profitable 
eventually  coincide,  that  the  law^s  of  morality  jus- 
tify themselves  in  the  experience  of  the  race,  if  not 
in  the  experience  of  the  individual;  and  therefore, 
in  the  life  of  an  institution,  what  is  good  and  right 
will  also  prove  in  the  long  run  profitable.  We  do 
not  ask,  therefore,  that  in  making  plans  for  edu- 
cation you  ignore  or  stifle  the  instinct  for  success ; 
but  only  that  you  do  not  deal  in  too  small  units, 
or  insist  that  the  harvest  come  over  night. 

There  is,  I  have  said,  no  maxim  or  precept  which 
will  decide  any  such  alternative  off-hand.  There 
is,  however,  one  principle  which  we  should  never 
lose  sight  of  in  such  dilemmas,  and  that  principle 
may  be  called  sincerity.  In  our  veneration  for 
institutions,  whether  the  institution  be  a  form  of 
church  government,  a  college  or  a  college  cur- 
riculum, a  political  party  or  a  national  constitu- 
tion, a  particular  shape  or  price  of  newspaper,  or 
an  accepted  style  of  architecture,  we  are  apt  to 
lose  sight  of  the  fact  that  these  were  created  orig- 
inally as  practical  means  for  attaining  definite 
ends ;  and  were  good  not  in  and  for  themselves, 
but  because  they  accomplished  something  which 
men  wanted,  in  a  pleasant  and  efficient  way.  Vin- 
dicated by  the  experience  of  generations,  hallowed 

226 


The  American  College  of  To-day 

as  the  source  of  untold  benefactions,  we  have  come 
to  esteem  them  for  themselves,  and  to  regard  as 
profane  the  man  who  would  apply  practical  tests 
to  that  which  we  have  come  to  regard  as  inher- 
ently sacred.  The  study  of  history  is  the  surest 
correction  of  this  attitude,  when  carried  to  im- 
proper extremes.  If  we  trace  the  birth  of  institu- 
tions and  find  how  they  are  the  outgrowth  and  sur- 
vival of  many  attempts  made  by  men — quite  as 
much  puzzled  and  perplexed  by  their  current  prob- 
lems as  we  are  to-day — to  find  the  proper  means 
to  reach  the  end  they  had  in  view;  and  if  we  will 
try  to  imbibe  their  spirit  rather  than  worship  their 
work,  we  shall  approach  the  problems  of  the  col- 
lege and  the  curriculum  in  a  new  spirit  of  sincer- 
ity, and  with  not  less  reverence  for  the  ideal. 

The  creed  expressed  by  Jesus,  when  he  declared 
that  the  Sabbath  was  made  for  man,  and  not  man 
for  the  Sabbath,  is  characteristic  of  the  thought 
of  our  own  day.  Institutions  are  made  for  man, 
not  man  for  institutions.  The  school  exists  for 
the  sake  of  the  child,  not  the  child  for  the  sake 
of  the  school.  If  we  seem  to  find  a  contradiction 
of  this  creed  in  the  present  sacrifice  of  a  million 
men  in  Germany  to  the  idea  of  the  state,  in  the 
sacrifice  of  a  whole  nation  like  Belgium  to  a  con- 
cept such  as  national  dignity  and  integrity,  it  is 
only  temporary  and  apparent;  and  when  society 
sums  up  the  values  of  the  present  conflict,  its  unit 
of  measurement  will  not  be  this  or  that  nation, 
but  man  the  individual,  including  all  his  larger 
relations  as  a  political  animal.    Unless  the  Bel- 

227 


The  American  College  of  To-day 

gian  of  to-moiTow  is  or  has  something  which  the 
citizen  of  Luxembourg  is  not  or  has  not,  Belgium 
will  have  suffered  in  vain.  There  is,  therefore, 
but  one  sure  method  of  measuring  results,  of  test- 
ing current  practice  or  new  experiment  in  the  edu- 
cational world,  and  that  is  by  the  pupil.  College 
faculties,  torn  this  way  and  that  by  conflicting 
interests,  alumni  reminiscent  of  their  own  college 
days,  trustees  interested  in  deficits  and  cost  units, 
college  presidents  eager  to  make  this  year  better 
than  the  last,  and  to  justify  their  membership  in 
the  great  brotherhood  of  optimists,  may  promul- 
gate theories,  may  decree  hall-marks  of  value,  may 
dress  up  this  or  that  subject  in  fine  array,  hoping 
thus  to  determine  its  station;  but  the  problem  of 
w^hat  makes  a  good  college  education  will  never 
be  settled  that  way. 

Nothing  is  more  illuminating  to  a  student  of 
educational  administration  than  to  see  how 
quickly  the  point  of  view  of  a  professor,  with 
relation  to  the  curriculum,  changes  the  minute  the 
professor  has  a  son  in  college,  and  he  looks  at  the 
curriculum  with  his  son's  eyes.  We  regard  this 
as  personal  partiality,  but  after  all,  enlarged  and 
generalized,  it  is  the  only  true  method.  If  we 
would  know  the  excellencies  or  defects  of  our  pres- 
ent system,  we  must  go  with  the  freshman  to  the 
Eegistrar's  office  and  enroll,  with  him  we  must 
pay  our  term  bills  and  establish  ourselves  in  the 
dormitory;  ^vith  him  we  must  face  the  question 
of  athletics  and  of  fraternity  life ;  and  with  him,  in 
spirit  if  not  in  body,  we  must  map  out  the  hours 

228 


The  American  College  of  To-day 

of  the  day  and  the  days  of  the  year,  and  go  the 
round  of  the  class-rooms.  If  it  be  true  that  ''ex- 
cept ye  become  as  little  children,  ye  shall  not  see 
the  Kingdom  of  Heaven,"  it  is  also  true  that 
the  college  professor  or  the  college  president  that 
dwells  in  a  world  remote  from  the  world  of  the 
student,  and  has  little  or  no  knowledge  of  how  that 
elaborate  scheme  of  compromise  known  as  the 
college  curriculum  works  out  in  the  case  of  an 
individual  freshman,  has  not  even  started  on  the 
road  to  the  kingdom  of  ideal  education. 

Nature  they  say  is  careless  of  the  individual, 
careless  even  of  the  type.  I,  for  one,  do  not  be- 
lieve it.  I  take  the  other  view  of  the  universe; 
that  not  a  sparrow  falls  to  the  ground  without  our 
Father's  notice,  and  that  men  are  of  much  greater 
value  than  they.  And  fortified  with  this  faith  in 
the  unique  significance  of  each  man,  I  return  again 
and  again  to  the  task  of  so  shaping  and  modifying 
our  institutions,  that  in  the  credit  and  debit  ac- 
count between  the  individual  and  organized  so- 
ciety, in  the  college  and  in  the  larger  world  with- 
out, the  balance  of  profit  shall  remain  with  the 
individual. 

I  wish  the  time  would  permit  me  to  take  you 
with  me,  step  by  step,  through  the  ideal  college  as 
I  picture  it.  But  perhaps  it  would  be  a  waste  of 
time,  after  all;  for  the  Lord  has  so  arranged  the 
world,  that  all  the  good  things  are  not  found  in 
any  one  institution,  nor  all  the  desirable  attributes 
in  any  one  man  or  woman,  as  the  college  presi- 
dent discovers  every  time  he  seeks  a  professor, 

229 


The  American  College  of  To-day 

and  as  you,  perhaps,  discovered  when  you  sought 
a  wife.  Besides,  you  have  each  of  you,  as  college 
men,  probably  in  a  more  or  less  conscious  way, 
pictured  an  ideal  college,  each  for  himself,  espe- 
cially if  you  have  a  son.  The  only  thing  is,  that  if 
you  have  a  son,  you  probably  have  much  more 
definite  ideas  as  to  what  you  do  not  want  him  to 
spend  time  on  at  college,  than  as  to  what  subjects 
you  do  want  him  to  study ;  and  it  becomes  the  task 
of  the  college  president  and  of  the  college  faculty, 
therefore,  to  substitute  for  old  dislikes  and  re- 
sentments, for  disproved  theories  and  hypotheses 
that  have  not  worked,  new  ideals  and  hypotheses 
which  shall  at  least  have  the  merit  of  not  contra- 
dicting your  experience. 

James  Bryce  has  said  that  two  salient  character- 
istics of  the  mass  of  the  American  people  are — 
"A  fondness  for  bold  and  striking  effects;  a  pref- 
erence for  larger  generalizations  and  theories 
which  have  an  air  of  completeness."  And  second, 
— "An  inadequate  perception  of  the  difference  be- 
tween first-rate  work  in  a  quiet  style,  and  mere 
flatness."  And  these  characteristics  of  the  mass 
of  our  people  have  militated  against  quality  in  our 
colleges.  There  is  growing  up,  however,  in  a 
small  circle,  a  more  intelligent  comprehension  of 
what  the  college  really  is,  and  what  a  difference 
there  may  be  between  a  good  college  and  a  poor 
college. 

Hence  thinking  men  favor  quality  as  against 
quantity.  They  favor  thoroughness  as  against 
speed.     They  favor  teachers  who  are  good  teach- 

230 


The  American  College  of  To-day 

ers,  rather  than  good  advertisers,  or  publishers,  or 
publicists.  One  of  the  weakest  points  in  college 
administration  has  been  that  we  have  had  no  fixed 
criteria  by  which  to  measure  good  teaching.  If 
we  want  good  teaching,  we  must  find  some  way  of 
knowing  it  when  we  have  it,  and  of  giving  it  its 
due  meed  of  fame,  and  proper  financial  reward. 
Yet  we  would  not  if  we  could  remove  the  college 
teacher  from  participation  in  the  life  of  his  times. 
President  Meiklejohn  has  said:  "I  believe  it  to  be 
the  function  of  the  teacher  to  stand  before  his 
pupils  and  before  the  community  at  large  as  the 
intellectual  leader  of  his  time.  If  he  is  not  able 
to  take  this  leadership,  he  is  not  worthy  of  his 
calling.  If  the  leadership  is  taken  from  him  and 
given  to  others,  then  the  very  foundations  of  the 
scheme  of  instruction  are  shaken."  And  yet,  in 
this  day  of  popular  interest  in  all  things,  of  pub- 
licity agents,  and  newspaper  reputation,  how  shall 
the  college  teacher  come  to  be  a  recognized  leader 
in  his  community,  if  he  sticks  to  his  last?  Recog- 
nized by  his  associates  he  may  be,  recognized  in 
other  universities  and  in  other  countries  if  he  is 
an  author;  but  now  as  ever  it  is  true  that  the 
prophet  (and  the  great  college  leader  is  a  prophet) 
is  likely  to  be  a  man  without  honor  in  his  own 
country  and  in  his  own  age. 

In  spite  of  what  Bryce  has  characterized  as  the 
average  American's  love  of  generalization  and  ap- 
parent completeness,  the  college  of  the  New  Era 
must  be  content  to  be  one-sided.  It  must  be  con- 
tent to  specialize.     It  must  aim  to  be  the  best  of 

231 


The  American  College  of  To-day 

its  kind  in  at  least  one  field ;  to  be  known  as  giv- 
ing the  best  course  in  the  country  in  English  or 
Chemistry,  or  History,  as  the  case  may  be.  Even 
one  great  man  confers  distinction  on  an  entire 
faculty,  and  all  his  contemporaries  shine  with  re- 
flected luster,  while  the  fame  of  an  Agassiz,  a 
Francis  Wayland,  a  Francis  March  outlasts  his 
own  generation,  and  confers  on  his  institution  the 
good-will  of  generations  as  yet  unborn. 

To  honor  the  great  teacher  will  put  a  premium 
too  on  all  good  teaching.  But  we  shall  need  also 
more  radical  reforms  to  alter  the  present  point  of 
view.  We  have  come  to  have  too  much  German 
irresponsibility  in  our  college  faculties,  too  many 
teachers  who  not  only  do  not  regard  themselves 
as  responsible  for  what  the  student  learns  or  does 
not  learn,  but  who  expressly  maintain  that  it  is 
not  their  affair,  that  it  is  the  function  of  the 
scholar  to  know  and  to  speak  what  they  know, 
that  it  is  the  business  of  the  man  with  ears  to 
hear,  or  not  to  hear  at  his  own  cost. 

This  has  resulted  in  a  false  antagonism  between 
the  professor  and  the  average  student.  They  lack 
a  common  aim.  If  some  means  can  be  devised  for 
the  w^hole  faculty  to  test  what  students  learn 
under  any  given  instructor,  that  common  interest 
will  be  supplied,  the  success  of  the  student  will 
be  also  the  success  of  the  teacher,  and  his  failure 
will  reflect  discredit  upon  the  teacher  as  well  as 
upon  himself.  Professor  and  student  will  then 
feel  that  they  are  cooperating  for  a  common  end, 
and  the  college  professor  will  feel  the  same  con- 

232 


The  American  College  of  To-day 

cern  for  the  success  of  his  students  as  the  pro- 
fessional school  does  for  the  record  of  its  grad- 
uates who  take  state  examinations  for  the  prac- 
tice of  law  or  of  medicine. 

The  faculty  must  enlarge  its  point  of  view  also 
with  regard  to  all  those  activities  which  go  to 
make  up  a  healthy  and  normal  life  for  the  young 
human  animal.  The  function  of  sleep  American 
colleges  have  long  recognized  alongside  of  study, 
and  immortalized  it  in  the  name  of  dormitory. 
Athletics  have  been  tolerated  or  encouraged,  but 
as  solely  a  student  affair,  not  as  a  faculty  affair 
in  any  positive  and  constructive  way,  until  re- 
cently. If  the  college  cannot  find  scholars  who 
are  interested  in  sports  and  physical  manhood  as 
well  as  in  intellectual  culture,  then  it  must  employ 
specialists  who  are  interested  in  sports  and  ath- 
letics from  the  educational  side,  and  make  them  a 
constituent  part  of  the  college  faculty.  So  with 
the  social  life  and  the  religious  life  of  the  students, 
the  faculty  must  know  the  whole  man,  must  plan 
for  the  whole  man ;  not  in  any  too  intimate  or  per- 
sonal way,  not  in  any  way  that  will  deprive  the 
student  of  the  freedom  of  self-direction,  but 
neither  in  the  laissez  faire  spirit  of  the  individual- 
ism of  the  past  century,  which  in  the  larger  com- 
munity of  the  state,  as  well  as  in  the  smaller  com- 
munity of  the  college,  felt  it  wise  to  throw  all  the 
responsibility  on  the  individual.  To  Plato  it 
seemed  worth  while  to  discuss  athletic  exercises 
at  considerable  length,  as  a  part  of  the  training 
of  both  men  and  women  in  his  ideal  state.    And 

233 


The  American  College  of  To-day 

thanks  to  the  increasing  knowledge  biology  has 
given  us  of  the  laws  of  growth,  of  the  relations 
of  physical  and  mental  conditions,  and  to  the 
saner  theology  of  to-day,  which  does  not  regard 
the  flesh  as  inherently  evil,  but  prays  "Thy 
Kingdom  come"  on  earth,  in  healthy  human  be- 
ings, the  way  is  open  for  college  faculties  to  take 
up  the  athletic  training  of  youth  in  as  scientific 
a  spirit  as  that  in  which  they  approach  their  in- 
tellectual training. 

We  have  to  reconcile  the  mass  of  the  American 
people  to  the  maintenance  of  an  intellectual  at- 
mosphere in  our  colleges,  at  the  cost  of  other 
things.  Some  colleges  at  least  must  resolve  to  be 
more  intellectual  than  the  average  society  around 
them.  Their  interest  in  things  intellectual  must 
exceed  the  interest  in  things  intellectual  of  even 
a  bowlful  of  their  own  alumni.  The  contents  of 
books  or  lectures  must  bubble  out  in  campus  con- 
versations, at  least  with  as  great  frequency  as 
comments  on  automobiles.  But  this  will  never 
come  until  the  colleges  secure  faculties  clever 
enough  to  show  the  relation  of  the  knowledge  they 
are  giving  to  life.  The  answers  to  problems  are 
never  interesting,  except  to  those  who  ask  the 
questions  or  hear  them  asked. 

The  college  which  is  to  survive  must  regain 
more  of  seriousness  of  purpose,  so  that  the  train- 
ing it  gives  will  be  real  discipline.  Instead  of 
planning  short  cuts,  we  shall  recognize  that  knowl- 
edge is  growing  by  such  leaps  and  bounds  that 
the  man  who  would  master  merely  the  rudiments 

234 


The  American  College  of  To-day 

will  have  but  little  leisure  in  four  full  crowded, 
happy  years. 

And  so  in  the  new  era  of  our  colleges,  big  and 
little,  to  quote  MacMechan,  ''season  will  follow 
season,  the  years  slip  away,  and  the  college  which 
is  not  a  building  or  a  staff  of  teachers,  or  a  body 
of  students,  or  all  combined,  but  a  spiritual  ideal," 
which  you  thinking  men  must  help  to  mold,  "will 
strike  its  roots  deeper  into  all  hearts  concerned 
a         with  it." 


235 


BUSINESS  SIDE  OF  COLLEGE  ADMINIS- 
TRATION 

THERE  was  a  time  when  the  college  presi- 
dent, like  the  church  pastor,  was  supposed 
to  be  free  from  worldly  cares  and  avocations,  but 
that  time  has  long  since  passed — if  it  ever  existed. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  head  of  a  college,  like  the 
head  of  a  church,  is  always  apt  to  share  the  finan- 
cial responsibility  of  his  concern.  It  is  said  that 
the  noted  divine  who  resigned  this  year  the  presi- 
dency of  a  theological  seminary  to  accept  a  pro- 
fessorship of  biblical  literature,  resigned  for  the 
reason  that  his  trustees  had  not  been  able  to  carry 
out  their  agreement  to  relieve  him  of  responsibil- 
ity for  the  finances  of  the  institution,  although 
this  w^as  one  of  the  conditions  understood  and 
agreed  to  when  he  took  the  position. 

Even  in  the  days  when  college  presidents  were 
preferably  clergymen,  they  were  still  business 
men — and  many  of  them  very  excellent  business 
men.  This  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  when  we 
realize  that  Mr.  Rockefeller  has  selected  as  his 
shrewd  business  agents  in  the  philanthropic  world 
— clergymen. 

But,  while  business  has  always  been  intermin- 
gled with  teaching  and  administration,  it  is  com- 

Address  before  the  Eotary  Club,  Easton,  Pa.,  1916. 

236 


Business  Side  of  College  Administration 

paratively  recently  that  business  has  begun  to  out- 
weigh the  teaching  and  administrative  functions. 
To  such  proportions  indeed  has  the  business  side 
of  college  administration  grown,  that  a  new  ten- 
dency has  set  in  which  has  manifested  itself  in  the 
appointment  in  many  institutions  of  a  second  ad- 
ministrative officer,  with  the  title  of  Provost,  Con- 
troller, Business  Manager,  Secretary,  Vice  Presi- 
dent, or  what-not,  for  the  purpose  of  relieving 
presidents  as  far  as  possible  of  routine  business 
administration.  This  is  a  tendency  which  is 
likely  to  go  very  much  farther  than  it  has  yet 
gone,  and  we  need  not  yet  despair  of  rescuing  the 
college  presidency  from  the  present  position  of 
''man-of -all-work"  and  general  "chore  boy"  to 
which  it  has  fallen. 

The  college,  as  a  business,  is  distinguished  from 
other  businesses  by  two  important  facts : 

(1)  A  college  president,  like  the  Hebrews  in 
Egypt,  is  expected  not  only  to  make  his  bricks, 
but  to  find  his  own  straw  for  his  bricks,  or,  failing 
to  find  it,  make  his  product  hold  together  as  best 
he  can. 

(2)  The  more  successful  the  college  president  is 
in  his  business,  the  greater  tends  to  be  his  deficit 
at  the  end  of  the  year.  Increasing  the  output 
does  not  reduce  production  costs,  nor  is  the  price 
of  the  article  particularly  affected  by  the  quality 
of  the  product.  No  under-graduate  college  which 
deals  in  liberal  culture  can  to-day,  in  America,  ask 
or  secure  what  the  course  costs  the  college.  No 
college  of  liberal  arts  in  America,  so  far  as  I 

237 


Business  Side  of  College  Administration 

know,  charges  its  students  more  than  $200.00  a 
year,  exdusive  of  room  and  board,  and  the  major- 
ity of  them  do  not  charge  more  than  $100.00  a 
year,  exclusive  of  room  and  board. 

The  Carnegie  Foundation  published  this  sum- 
mer a  report  showing  the  increase  in  college  tui- 
tion fees  during  the  last  ten  years.  In  general 
these  charges  have  increased  about  one-fifth  in 
that  time.  Outside  of  the  technical  schools  the 
highest  charge  is  the  new  fee  of  Harvard,  $200. 

The  most  notable  increases  were : 
Amherst  from  $110  in  1909  to  $190  in  1915 
Bowdoin  from  $75  in  1909  to  $100  in  1915 
University  of  Wisconsin  from  $30  in  1909  to  $100 

1915 
Wesleyan  from  $108  in  1906  to  $190  in  1915 
Oberlin  from  $75  in  1910  to  $100  in  1915 
Columbia  from  $150  in  1913  to  $198  in  1915 
Union  College  from  $75  in  1910  to  $90  in  1915 

Since  the  report  the  fee  at  Princeton  has  been 
increased  from  $160  to  $175,  and  at  Harvard  from 
$150,  the  fee  charged  since  1869,  to  $200.  Yale 
has  adopted  a  system  by  which  the  charges  are 
based  upon  a  charge  of  $40  for  overhead  expenses 
per  student  per  year,  plus  $8  per  hour  of  instruc- 
tion per  year,  the  university  stating  that  this  is 
approximately  the  actual  cost  of  the  teaching. 

At  Lafayette,  a  student  pays  approximately 
$160  a  year  outside  of  technical  courses,  where  he 
pays  $210.  The  cost  to  the  college  per  student  is 
approximately  $275  per  year,  allowing  nothing  for 
interest  on  plant.    If  this  were  added,  the  col- 

238 


Business  Side  of  College  Administration 

lege  would  have  to  secure  an  additional  one  hun- 
dred dollars  per  student,  or  approximately 
$375.00,  to  come  out  even.  What  the  student  now 
pays,  is,  roughly  speaking,  the  teachers'  salaries, 
leaving  the  heating,  lighting  and  cleaning  of  build- 
ings, care  of  grounds,  repairs,  insurance,  admin- 
istration, advertising  and  printing  to  be  provided 
from  some  other  source. 

It  is  conceivable  if  the  state  were  doing  nothing 
for  liberal  education  that  there  might  have 
sprung  up  here  and  there,  a  self-supporting  col- 
lege where  the  charge  for  tuition  would  be  $500.00 
per  student,  and  the  president  might,  therefore, 
make  both  ends  meet,  or  even  find  himself  in  the 
position  of  the  ordinary  business  man — the  larger 
his  trade,  the  greater  his  profits.  In  other  words, 
the  college  might  be  in  the  same  position  as  the 
preparatory  schools  that  are  conducted  on  a  pro- 
prietary basis,  yet  it  is  to  be  noted  that  even  the 
best  of  our  preparatory  schools  are  inclined  to 
fashion  themselves  after  the  colleges  rather  than 
the  colleges  after  the  preparatory  schools  in  this 
matter  of  money-making.  Several  of  the  best 
girls'  schools  have  recently  sought  incorporation, 
in  order  that  they  might  not  only  secure  perman- 
ence, but  might  also  appeal  to  their  graduates  for 
financial  support.  So  long  as  the  state  stands 
ready  to  offer  a  liberal  education  free  for  boys 
and  girls,  either  by  maintaining  a  state  college, 
as  in  Pennsylvania,  or  by  offering  competitive 
scholarships,  good  at  any  institution  approved  by 

239 


Business  Side  of  College  Administration 

the  state,  as  in  New  York,  it  is  not  likely  that  a 
college  can  ever  be  made  profitable  from  the  busi- 
ness point  of  view. 

The  college  president,  therefore,  so  far  as  he  is 
a  business  man,  is  a  business  man  in  the  same 
sense  in  which  the  manager  of  a  hospital  is  a  busi- 
ness man.  He  is  conducting  the  business  side  of 
philanthropy,  not  the  business  side  of  productive 
business.  The  fuller  he  keeps  his  beds  with  pa- 
tients, the  greater  will  be  his  deficit  at  the  end  of 
the  year. 

There  is,  however,  a  strictly  business  side  to 
philanthropy.  Experts  have  studied  the  cost  per 
bed  at  various  hospitals,  for  construction  and 
maintenance,  so  that  one  well-informed  on  the  sub- 
ject can  tell  in  a  moment  whether  a  given  hospital 
is  costing  more  or  less  than  it  should.  So,  the 
experts  are  beginning  to  make  studies  of  college 
buildings.  Yale,  for  example,  can  tell  not  only 
what  the  cost  of  each  dormitory  is  per  student, 
but  also  what  the  annual  cost  of  upkeep  is  per 
student,  and  what  the  relation  is  between  first 
cost  and  cost  of  annual  upkeep. 

This  is  a  side  of  business  administration  in  the 
colleges  which  has  not  yet  received  sufficient  at- 
tention. We  know  in  general  that  in  the  long  run, 
the  cheapest  is  not  likely  to  be  the  cheapest  to 
maintain.  On  the  other  hand,  we  do  not  know 
that  the  most  expensive  costs  the  least  in  the  long 
run,  and  as  yet  no  one  has  given  us  the  scientific 
information  which  will  enable  us  to  say,  for  ex- 

240 


Business  Side  of  College  Administration 

ample,  what  kind  of  a  flooring,  or  what  kind  of 
a  chair  is  the  cheapest  in  the  long  run  for  a  col- 
lege. 

There  was  a  time  when  the  instruction  given  by 
the  college  was  determined  entirely  on  scholastic 
or  theoretical  grounds.  This  is  no  longer  the 
case,  especially  in  our  largest  institutions.  Nowa- 
days, the  college  president  is  expected  to  have 
some  financial  standard  by  which  he  may  deter- 
mine such  things  as  how  small  a  class  may  be  and 
not  be  an  extravagance. 

The  college  president  to-day  is  expected  to  talk 
as  glibly  of  overhead  charges  and  per  capita 
costs,  as  the  efficiency  expert,  and  is  supposed  to 
be  able  to  measure  the  productive  capacity  of  the 
professors  by  multiplying  the  number  of  students 
that  a  professor  can  teach  efficiently  at  one  time 
by  the  number  of  hours  a  week  the  professor's 
physical  strength  will  permit  him  to  teach. 

As  yet  the  college  president  has  not  been  as 
much  bothered  in  his  business  by  trades-union 
rules  as  the  business  man,  but  the  same  tendencies 
begin  to  manifest  themselves  in  the  college  world. 
There  is  a  disposition  to  standardize  among  the 
members  of  the  faculty,  to  fix  twelve  or  fifteen 
hours  a  week  as  the  standard  number  of  lectures 
to  be  given,  and  to  see  that  all  members  of  the 
faculty  are  treated  the  same  in  this  respect. 
There  is  a  tendency  to  standardize  the  number  of 
students  in  a  class  and  to  see  that  every  class  con- 
sists of  twenty  or  twenty-five,  irrespective  of  the 
nature  of  the  subject.     The  result  of  these  tenden- 

241 


Business  Side  of  College  Administration 

cios  is  further  to  standardize  the  professors'  pay 
because  it  is  easy  to  see  if  the  number  of  hours 
of  chiss  room  work  is  fixed,  and  the  pay  of  the 
professors  is  substantially  the  amount  paid  by 
the  student  in  college  fees,  that  mathematics  will 
determine  the  professor's  salary.  Thus,  for  ex- 
ample, if  a  student  pays  at  the  rate  of  $10.00  an 
hour  for  a  course  one  hour  a  week  running 
through  the  college  year,  and  the  number  of  stu- 
dents in  each  class  is  limited  to  twenty,  it  is  evi- 
dent that  the  professor's  compensation  per  hour 
per  year  will  be  twenty  times  ten,  or  two  hundred 
dollars.  And  if  he  gives  twelve  hours  a  week  per 
year  his  compensation  will  be  twelve  times  $200.00, 
or  $2400.00. 

This  tendency  toward  trade  union  standardiza- 
tion works  in  college  business  as  in  other  trades, 
obviously  to  the  disadvantage  of  the  superior 
man.  There  are  men  who  can  teach  40  students 
as  successfully  as  some  other  man  can  teach  20. 
At  the  same  time,  there  are  exceptional  men 
who  can  lecture  profitably  to  200  students  at  one 
time,  and  where  the  tendency  toward  standardiza- 
tion prevails  this  superior  ability  cannot  be  util- 
ized, nor  can  the  superior  man  secure  the  supe- 
rior rewards  which  are  likely  to  keep  him  in  the 
teaching  business. 

From  the  administrative  point  of  view,  it  is 
desirable,  therefore,  to  avoid  too  much  standard- 
ization and  to  introduce,  at  least,  the  distinctions 
recognized  in  the  civil  service  of  various  grades. 
With  such  arrangements,  it  should  be  possible  to 

242 


Business  Side  of  College  Administration 

pay  the  exceptional  man  who  can  teach  200  stu- 
dents profitably,  perhaps  not  ten  times  the  com- 
pensation paid  to  the  man  who  can  teach  20,  al- 
though that  would  not  be  too  great  a  differentia- 
tion in  reward  to  promote  the  best  interests  of  the 
teaching  profession,  but  at  least  five  times  as 
much,  which  would  give  him  instead  of  a  salary 
of  $2400.00  a  salary  of  $12,000.00.  In  the  same 
way,  there  is  the  same  objection  to  piece  work  on 
the  part  of  college  professors  that  is  found  with 
trade  unions.  There  has  grown  up  with  us  the 
theory  borrowed  from  Germany  that  teachers  in 
institutions  of  higher  education  are  not  responsi- 
ble for  the  results  of  their  teaching.  That  is,  if 
I  am  a  professor  of  history,  and  I  teach  one  hun- 
dred freshmen  and  sixty  of  the  class  do  not  learn 
enough  to  pass  the  examination  at  the  end  of  the 
term,  the  responsibility  must  be  supposed  to  rest 
with  the  students,  not  with  the  professor. 

College  administrators,  from  the  business  point 
of  view,  have  devised  two  methods  of  correcting 
this  tendency,  but  neither  of  them  is  as  yet  very 
widely  used.  As  a  result  of  extended  studies,  it 
has  been  found  possible  to  say  that  in  any  given 
group  of  men  approximately  5  per  cent,  may  be 
expected  to  grade  *'A,"  20  per  cent.  ''B,"  40  per 
cent.  "C,"  20  per  cent.  "D,"  and  accordingly  a 
curve  can  be  drawn  which  illustrates  this  fact. 
The  modern  president  accordingly  when  the  re- 
turns of  examinations  are  filed  can  make  up  a 
record  showing  what  the  proportionate  number  of 
grades  of  each  kind,  given  by  each  professor  is, 

243 


Business  Side  of  College  Administration 

and  from  this  establish  the  curve  which,  on  com- 
parison with  the  normal  curve  already  estab- 
lished, will  indicate  whether  too  many  men  are 
receiving  '*A,"  too  many  men  ''E^'  or  "F"  in 
the  courses  of  that  particular  professor,  and  if 
there  appears  to  be  a  wide  divergence  from  the 
normal  curve,  he  can  make  inquiry  to  ascertain 
whether  it  is  the  marking  or  the  teaching  which  is 
at  fault.  You  may  recall  the  college  boys '  rhyme 
quoted  by  President  Foster: 

"There  was  a  professor  named  Bray 
Who  forgot  the  reflection  on  Bray 

When  in  two  of  his  classes 

He  gave  out  few  passes 
And  frightened  good  students  away." 

Another  de\dce  is  to  have  the  examination  given 
by  a  joint  board  or  by  some  one  other  than  the  in- 
structor, so  that  the  examination  becomes  not 
only  a  test  of  the  student's  knowledge,  but  a  test 
also  of  the  teacher's  ability  to  impart  knowledge. 
These  are  some  instances  of  business  methods  in 
modern  college  administration.  Others  will  sug- 
gest themselves  to  all  of  you,  investigations,  such 
as  those  conducted  by  the  Carnegie  Foundation 
with  reference  to  the  use  made  of  class  rooms, 
the  study  of  laboratory  methods  by  the  Carnegie 
Foundation,  etc.,  are  examples  which  I  might 
name. 

At  Lafayette  last  year  Professor  Lyle  and  Pro- 
fessor Fitch  prepared  a  report  showing  the  num- 
ber of  chairs  in  each  class  room,  the  number  of 

244 


Business  Side  of  College  Administration 

cubic  feet  to  each  student,  the  number  of  square 
feet  of  window  glass,  the  number  of  square  feet 
of  black  board,  and  the  number  of  hours  each 
room  was  in  use. 

Various  attempts  have  been  made  to  measure 
the  more  intangible  products  of  the  college  life. 
Professor  Kunkel  at  Lafayette  is  now  conducting 
an  investigation  along  the  lines  of  an  investiga- 
tion conducted  at  Harvard  to  determine  whether 
there  is  any  relation  between  high  grades  in  col- 
lege and  success  in  life. 

The  various  engineering  societies  in  connection 
with  the  Carnegie  Foundation  are  trying  to  dis- 
cover whether  a  curriculum  can  be  devised  which 
will  promote  individual  initiative,  inventiveness, 
thoroughness,  reliability  and  those  qualities  of 
character  which  we  either  ascribe  to  inheritance 
or  to  moral  training  outside  the  school. 

It  is  said  that  our  colleges  to-day  have  no  clear 
conception  of  the  kind  of  man  whom  they  wish 
to  produce,  and  therefore,  no  standard  by  which 
to  judge  their  product,  that  you  must  first  know 
what  you  want  to  do  before  you  can  go  to  work 
to  do  it.  There  is  a  good  deal  of  truth  in  this 
criticism.  We  have  been  passing  through  an  age 
of  experimentation — the  sudden  growth  and  de- 
velopment of  modem  science  overwhelmed  the  old 
curriculum,  in  which  every  student  could  cover 
all  the  branches  of  knowledge,  and  in  which  every 
professor  felt  that  his  branch  was  the  most  im- 
portant. For  a  time  there  was  a  consensus  of 
opinion  that  certain  branches  were  essential  and 

245 


Business  Side  of  College  Administration 

that  of  other  branches  one  was  as  good  as  another. 
As  the  number  of  subjects  clamoring  for  recogni- 
tion grew,  the  only  way  to  make  room  for  all  was 
to  throw  down  the  bars  and  make  it  a  free  field 
with  no  favor.  This  led  to  what  was  known  as 
the  Free  Elective  System.  The  responsibility 
which  no  faculty  was  willing  to  assume  was  thijs 
thrown  upon  the  student,  and  he  must  decide  for 
himself  what  subjects  to  take  and  what  subjects 
he  could  safely  ignore.  No  two  professors  would 
advise  a  student  the  same  way  regarding  his 
course,  and  it  followed  naturally  that  there  was 
no  picture,  common  to  all,  of  the  ideal  college 
graduate.  The  geologist  knew  what  a  good 
geologist  was,  and  the  chemist  a  chemist;  the 
professor  of  German,  a  good  linguist,  and  so  on. 
At  the  same  time,  American  society  lost  its  co- 
herence and  become  too  broad  and  extensive  a 
thing  to  have  any  recognized  leadership,  social, 
financial  or  intellectual.  There  was  nobody  to 
state  authoritatively  what  constituted  a  man  of 
culture.  The  arts  and  graces  particularly  prized 
by  certain  sections  of  society,  as  for  example, 
knowledge  of  art,  knowledge  of  music,  ability  to 
speak  French  and  Italian  correctly  and  to  dance 
well,  were  the  branches  for  the  most  part  ignored 
by  the  college  of  culture.  On  the  other  side,  the 
college  boy  himself  set  up  a  new  ideal  of  culture, 
which  further  divorced  the  actual  product  of  the 
college  from  the  ideals  of  refinement  of  the  Victor- 
ian age  which  thought  that  the  gentleman  should 
stand   up    straight,   keep   his   hands    out    of   his 

246 


Business  Side  of  College  Administration 

pockets,  brush  his  hair  smoothly  and  wear  incon- 
spicuous clothes. 

The  college  of  America,  however,  is  not  alone 
in  not  knowing  just  what  it  wants.  It  is  charac- 
teristic of  the  foreign  policy  of  the  American 
people  and  of  their  domestic  policy  as  well.  The 
truth  of  the  matter  being  that  so  many  different 
elements  and  races  have  been  introduced  into  our 
civilization  that  there  are  all  kinds  of  cross-cur- 
rents and  there  are  as  many  different  wants  and 
ideals  as  there  are  different  kinds  of  people 
among  us. 

The  most  hopeful  sign  looking  toward  the  solu- 
tion of  the  question  is  that  here  and  there  institu- 
tions are  beginning  to  show  signs  of  being  content 
with  having  an  idea  of  their  own,  even  though  it 
may  not  be  shared  by  other  institutions.  They 
begin  to  see  what  the  good  business  man  has  long 
seen — that  there  are  great  advantages  in  having 
a  trade-mark,  even  though  your  goods  may  be 
practically  the  same  as  those  sold  in  the  shop 
across  the  street.  Domino  sugar  may  be  no 
better  than  sugar  out  of  the  barrel,  but  at  least 
the  man  buying  it  feels  that  he  has  a  certain  as- 
surance as  to  what  he  may  expect.  There  was  a 
time  when  oat  meal  was  oat  meal  to  the  whole 
country,  but  now  oat  meal  is  Homsby  Oats  to 
one,  and  Quakers  Oats  to  another,  and  so  on  down 
the  list.  So  with  education — until  the  present, 
college  courses  have  been  college  courses  with  a 
great  many  people  in  general,  but  from  now  on 
we  are  likely  to  have  greater  differentiation. 

247 


Business  Side  of  College  Administration 

The  American  does  not  know  the  difference  be- 
tween a  Balliol  man  at  Oxford  and  a  Christ 
Church  man,  but  to  an  Englishman  there  is  as 
much  difference  as  between  a  lawyer  and  a  doctor. 

Amherst  College  has  tried  to  introduce  in  Amer- 
ica the  distinctive  trade-mark  idea  for  education, 
so  that  hereafter  an  Amherst  man  shall  be  known 
as  a  classical  student,  but  as  a  man  can  graduate 
at  Amherst  without  Greek,  the  idea  does  not  make 
very  rapid  progress. 

There  may  be  no  money  in  the  trade-mark  idea 
in  American  education,  but  to  my  mind  it  is  the 
only  road  to  distinction  in  a  democracy  and  the 
only  way  of  escape  from  a  paralyzing  sameness 
of  mediocrity. 

Besides  these  business  problems,  which  are 
business  problems  for  the  college  president  to 
solve,  there  are  other  business  problems  which  be- 
long to  the  manager  of  a  large  institution  or 
great  estate.  There  are  the  business  problems 
relating  to  physical  plant.  The  president  of  La- 
fayette, for  example,  is  concerned  as  well  as  the 
director  of  Highways  of  the  State  over  the  ques- 
tion of  what  is  the  cheapest  and  most  durable 
roadway  for  automobile  traffic,  or  like  the  Park 
Commissioner  over  what  will  kill  the  elm  beetle 
or  protect  his  chestnut  trees.  He  is  supposed  to 
be  something  of  an  architect  and  builder.  He  has 
an  interest  in  all  building  materials;  he  is  sup- 
posed to  know  what  is  the  best  brand  of  white 
lead,  Atlantic  or  Dutch  Boy;  whether  two  100  W. 
or  one  200  W.  Mazdas  is  the  more  economical 

248 


Business  Side  of  College  Administration 

light.  He  is  supposed  to  know  as  well  as  any 
housewife  in  Easton  what  will  take  cement  dust 
and  acid  fumes  off  window  glass.  He  must  be 
familiar  with  the  price  of  coal,  and  know  whether 
Lehigh  is  worth  the  difference  in  price.  He  is 
supposed  to  be  familiar  with  the  market  rates  and 
wages  of  laborers,  gardeners,  scrub  women,  car- 
penters, firemen,  engineers,  painters,  tinsmiths, 
night  watchmen,  etc.,  etc.  He  is  supposed  to  keep 
an  eye  on  the  investments  of  the  college  and  to 
learn  that  the  first  rule  of  wealth  is  how  to  buy 
when  things  are  cheap  and  to  sell  when  they  are 
dear.  He  is  supposed  even  to  have  the  valuable 
qualities  of  a  good  credit  man  and  to  be  able  to  tell 
by  looking  at  a  student  how  long  and  how  much  he 
is  to  be  trusted  with  credit  for  his  college  charges, 
and  finally  he  must  know  something  of  what  a  re- 
cent writer  of  the  "Saturday  Evening  Post'^  de- 
scribed as  the  "Fine  Art  of  Hiring  and  Firing." 
Or  perhaps,  the  college  president  is  not  supposed 
to  fire  any  one  in  these  days  of  professors'  unions. 
Perhaps  we  ought  to  say  in  the  gentle  art  of 
dividing  $5,000  available  for  salary  increases  any 
one  year  among  the  twenty  applicants,  and  to 
their  mutual  satisfaction. 

President  Eliot  says  that  the  most  important 
work  the  college  president  has  to  do  is  to  discover 
and  secure  good  professors,  and  he  adds,  never 
appoint  a  professor  until  you  have  seen  his  mfe. 
President  Hyde  of  Bowdoin  says  that  he  con- 
siders he  has  earned  his  year's  salary  when  he 
has  found  three  good  men  for  his  faculty. 

249 


Business  Side  of  College  Administration 

College  presidents  are  expected,  too,  to  do  a 
good  deal  of  traveling.  They  belong,  indeed,  to 
the  great  army  of  drummers.  As  Dr.  Warfield 
said  this  week,  their  favorite  book  is  the  mileage 
book. 

The  President  of  Lafayette  has  recently  had 
added  to  his  other  business  activities,  a  branch  of 
business  administration  of  which  the  college  presi- 
dent generally  knows  less  than  any  small  boy  in 
a  college  to^^^l — namely,  the  administration  of  the 
financial  side  of  college  athletics.  Last  year  La- 
fayette took  in  nearly  $26,000.00  on  its  athletic  ac- 
count, and  paid  out  $28,000.00,  and  every  cent  of 
the  $28,000.00  had  to  be  paid  out  on  the  presi- 
dent's 0.  K.  Only  yesterday  the  bursar  was 
pointing  out  what  a  lot  of  space  athletic  pay- 
ments are  taking  in  the  voucher  records.  From 
my  own  experience,  I  feel  sure  that  it  would  be 
a  liberal  education  to  any  college  president  to 
enjoy  the  same  experience. 

It  goes  without  saying  that  the  college  president 
must  be  something  of  a  bookkeeper,  and  be  able, 
like  the  heads  of  other  great  corporations,  to  make 
the  figures  of  his  annual  report  tell  the  story  he 
wishes  to  tell.  He  must  also  be  enough  of  a  busi- 
ness man  to  be  able  to  persuade  banks  and  trust 
companies  to  let  the  institution  have  money  at  5  or 
6%,  for  which  the  stock  broker  pays  3  or  4,  and  not 
to  require  more  than  200  7^  margin  for  collateral. 
Above  all  he  must  be  an  apostle  of  publicity  in 
corporation  affairs,  and  thoroughly  imbued  with 
the  lesson  which  the  Government  has  been  trying 

250 


Business  Side  of  College  Administration 

to  hammer  into  the  heads  of  the  American  busi- 
ness man,  "However  private  the  affairs  of  an 
individual  may  be,  the  affairs  of  corporations  are 
necessarily  public."  And  the  college  president, 
as  a  business  man,  therefore,  if  he  is  to  be  suc- 
cessful, plays  with  all  his  cards  on  the  table. 
They  do  not  only  publish  all  the  information  they 
work  out  regarding  their  institution,  but  if  no  one 
comes  to  investigate,  they  will  create  their  own 
investigating  committees  to  smell  out  and  spread 
abroad  odors  of  sanctity,  or  otherwise,  which  he 
did  not  even  himself  suspect.  And  this  reminds 
me  that  we  had  almost  forgotten  to  mention  that 
ever  important  aspect  of  business  administration 
— advertising. 

The  college  president  in  these  days  must  al- 
ways be  himself  something  of  an  advertisement. 
As  Dr.  Pritchett  said  to  me  when  I  came  to  Lafay- 
ette— ' '  If  you  can  do  good  work,  and  in  the  second 
place,  if  you  can  let  people  know  what  you  are 
doing."  This  is  not  a  simple  problem  for  the 
business  man  of  the  college.  If  you  are  making 
shoes,  you  can  tell  the  people  about  shoes  in  your 
advertisement;  if  you  are  making  crackers,  you 
can  tell  them  about  crackers;  if  you  are  making 
automobiles,  you  can  tell  them  about  automobiles. 
But,  while  the  college  president  can  tell  the  people 
a  lot  about  football,  and  a  lot  about  a  ' '  cane  rush, ' ' 
a  lot  about  some  scandal  or  some  sensational  ut- 
terance of  a  professor,  it  is  very  difficult  to  tell 
them  about  the  serious  solid  work  in  the  college. 

Advertising,  as  such,  is  not  supposed  to  be  good 
251 


Business  Side  of  College  Administration 

form  for  colleges  of  the  higher  grade.  College 
bulletins  as  a  rule  find  the  quick  road  to  the  trash 
basket.  In  New  York,  we  published  a  half-million 
new  bulletins  each  year  in  the  hope  that  perhaps 
one  per  cent,  would  find  a  reader.  Some  things 
will  reach  the  public  if  the  college  president  says 
them,  by  reason  of  his  representative  position, 
with  the  result  that  college  presidents  are  put  in 
a  position  of  talking  of  a  great  many  things  of 
which  some  other  member  of  the  college  staff  is 
much  more  competent  to  speak. 

The  president  of  a  great  corporation  in  Phila- 
delphia said  to  me  last  winter,  "It  is  the  business 
of  you  college  presidents  to  try  out  new  theories 
on  the  public,  as  you  are  expected  to  be  somewhat 
daring  and  erratic.  Then  we  business  men  can 
come  along  using  for  our  speeches — things  you 
say  which  the  people  approve.^'  I  was  glad  to 
know  that  the  large  amount  of  talking  which  the 
college  president  is  expected  to  do,  would  serve 
even  this  useful  purpose. 

The  college  president,  as  a  business  man,  when 
it  comes  to  a  question  of  raising  new  capital  for 
a  larger  business,  is  to  be  classed  rather  with  min- 
ing adventurers  than  with  the  managers  of  recog- 
nized solid  business  concerns.  He  finds  few  who 
will  take  stock  in  a  concern  whose  dividends  are 
intangible.  Here  and  there  he  may  find  some  one 
who  will  grub-stake  him  as  a  gamble  in  human 
welfare.  I  know  a  college  president  who  w^ent  to 
one  of  our  millionaire  New  York  merchants  to  ask 
a  subscription  to  his  college.     "Do  you  give  stock 

252 


Business  Side  of  College  Administration 

in  your  university  for  a  subscription?"  he  asked. 
''No,"  the  president  replied,  "when  we  give  we 
give."  "Well,"  said  the  merchant,  "when  we 
build  a  synagogue,  we  issue  stock.  It  don't  pay 
much  dividends,  but  then  you  feel  you  have  some- 
thing for  your  money."  Sixty-five  years  ago  La- 
fayette got  a  hundred  thousand  dollars  by  offer- 
ing perpetual  free  tuition  for  every  gift  of  $500, 
but  it  was  not  good  business. 

I  have  named  three  considerations  which  differ- 
entiate the  college  president's  work  as  a  business 
man  from  that  of  other  business  men.  There  is, 
however,  one  fact  which  is  more  fundamental  than 
any  of  the  other  considerations.  In  most  busi- 
nesses the  important  thing  is  the  product,  not  the 
process,  and  in  the  college  the  important  thing  is 
the  process.  I  do  not  know  that  I  can  make  this 
entirely  clear  in  a  word,  but  perhaps  this  example 
may  suggest  what  I  have  in  mind. 

If  my  business  is  the  manufacture  of  crackers, 
any  new  invention  applicable  to  the  business  may 
be  measured  as  to  its  desirability  by  the  number 
of  crackers  it  -will  turn  out  at  a  given  cost.  The 
question  of  five  companies,  or  one  company,  may 
be  measured  in  the  same  way.  If  it  had  been  pos- 
sible to  show  beyond  a  doubt  that  the  Standard 
Oil  and  American  Tobacco  had  made  oil  and  to- 
bacco cheaper  than  they  could  have  been  under 
competition,  from  the  business  point  of  view,  the 
argument  would  have  been  entirely  in  favor  of 
the  trust.  If  you  are  manufacturing  crackers  and 
can  get  all  the  work  done  by  machinery  and  elimi- 

253 


Business  Side  of  College  Administration 

natc  human  contact,  it  is  desirable  to  do  so.  None 
of  these  things  are  true  in  education.  The  school 
cannot  be  measured  by  the  number  of  boys  it  turns 
out,  nor  is  the  process  necessarily  the  best  which 
costs  the  least  for  the  human  product.  Machinery 
cannot  replace  the  human  element,  so  that  the 
phonograph  is  not  of  much  use  in  education. 

iWe  maintain  colleges,  not  only  that  the  boys 
may  be  educated,  but  that  the  colleges  may  be  liv- 
ing among  us,  that  the  community  may  have 
learned  men  in  its  midst  to  leaven  and  influence 
society.  If  we  can  devise  a  machine  which  will 
make  it  possible  for  one  man  to  do  the  work  of 
two,  it  is  an  advantage  to  the  ordinary  business, 
but  it  is  not  necessarily  an  advantage  to  the  future 
if  we  can  so  arrange  things  that  the  future  can 
get  along  with  one  professor  in  Latin  instead  of 
two  professors.  In  other  words,  as  we  approach 
education,  we  are  getting  away  from  things  which 
are  means  to  ends,  and  approach  the  things  which 
are  ends  in  themselves.  We  ask  for  what  pur- 
pose is  all  our  commercial  efficiency.  We  answer 
that  men  may  have  more  time  to  live  and  enjoy 
life.  To  what  end  an  eight  and  ten  hour  day? 
That  the  laborer  may  have  some  time  for  enjoy- 
ment and  improvement,  and  life  with  his  family. 
If  we  try  to  make  these  theories  specific,  we  have 
to  ask  ourselves  what  is  it  we  want  society  to  be 
doing  in  the  spare  time  which  our  improved  effi- 
ciency is  to  make  available.  Shall  we  say  we  want 
society  to  go  to  the  moving  picture  shows,  to 
motor,  to  dance,  and  to  eat?     These  are  all  pleas- 

254 


Business  Side  of  College  Administration 

urable  occupations,  and  we  want  society  to  shart 
as  much  pleasure  as  may  be  wholesome. 

But,  if  we  think  further,  we  must  have  it  in 
mind  that  there  is  something  more  than  this  for 
society — something  which  we  designate  by  the 
vague  term,  progress,  so  that  the  American  of 
to-morrow  will  be  stronger,  larger,  wiser  than  the 
American  of  to-day.  And  it  is  through  education 
that  we  expect  this  progress  to  come.  For  the 
mere  imparting  of  knowledge  we  want  only  enough 
teachers  to  make  sure  that  the  next  generation 
knows  all  that  we  know,  but  for  inspiration,  in- 
crease of  knowledge,  and  leadership,  we  can  use 
all  the  true  scholars  and  teachers  which  society 
will  support.  In  those  nations  which  rest  upon 
a  military  basis,  the  business  man  is  thought  of 
strictly  as  a  means  to  an  end.  In  Japan  the  busi- 
ness man  exists  that  the  Samurai  may  lead  his 
heroic  life;  in  Germany  the  business  man  exists 
that  the  soldier  and  the  scientist  may  advance  Ger- 
man Kultur;  in  America,  not  having  very  many 
definite  national  ideals,  we  are  in  danger  as  a 
nation,  as  we  are  in  danger  as  individuals,  of  mak- 
ing the  increase  of  wealth  our  national  ideal, 
being  content  to  ''hand  it  to  our  womenfolk  after 
we  are  gone"  to  express  our  ideals  with  the  help 
of  the  wealth  we  have  accumulated.  There  never 
was  a  generation  like  the  last  generation,  which 
contained  so  many  notable  examples  of  men  who 
testified  by  their  wills,  "we  do  not  know  what 
money  is  good  for,  but  perhaps  our  wives  do." 

American  education  will  lose  much  and  gain 

2?? 


Business  Side  of  College  Administration 

little  if  her  college  presidents  become  such  busi- 
ness men  that  they  know  better  how  a  dollar  may 
be  saved  or  made,  than  they  know  how  a  dollar 
may  be  spent  to  the  welfare  and  progress  of  man- 
kind. 

We  grumble  and  rebel  at  the  constant  call  upon 
our  purses  for  community  enterprises,  but  they 
are  only  growing  pains.  Society  if  growing  is 
always  finding  new  interests.  It  is  doing  more 
things  in  common,  more  things  by  voluntary  con- 
tribution. Its  interests  are  wider  and  less  selfish 
to-day  than  twenty  years  ago,  as  this  Rotary  Club 
testifies.  We  are  doing  what  the  political  phil- 
osophers have  said  we  must  do,  finding  in  hos- 
pital campaigns,  park  campaigns,  college  cam- 
paigns, moral  substitutes  for  war,  with  some  slight 
reflection  of  war's  heroism  and  sacrifice.  They 
still  lack  the  thrill  and  splendor  of  war,  perhaps, 
because  unlike  war  they  do  not  demand  a  willing- 
ness to  make  the  supreme  sacrifice,  the  sacrifice 
of  life  itself  for  a  great  cause.  When  I  first  saw 
the  Rotarian  motto,  it  was  hanging  on  the  wall 
of  a  hotel  dining  room,  and  I  thought  ^ '  He  profits 
most,  who  serves  best,"  w^as  a  good  waiter's 
motto,  but  in  its  mder  application  to  business,  it 
invites  all  business  men  to  share  the  joys  which 
the  college  president  long  ago  discovered  as  a 
business  man,  for  there  is  no  pleasure  comparable 
to  working  unselfishly  for  great  ends. 


256 


COLLEGE  FELLOWSHIP 

EMERSON  begins  one  of  his  essays  by  saying: 
* '  The  search  after  the  great  man  is  the  dream 
of  youth  and  the  most  serious  occupation  of  man- 
hood. We  travel  into  foreign  parts  to  find  his 
works;  if  possible,  to  get  a  glimpse  of  him,  but 
we  are  put  off  with  fortune  instead.  The  English 
you  say  are  practical,  the  Germans  are  hospitable, 
in  Valencia  the  climate  is  delicious,  and  in  the  hills 
of  the  Sacramento  there  is  gold  for  the  gather- 
ing. Yes,  but  I  do  not  travel  to  find  comfortable 
rich  and  hospitable  people,  or  clear  sky,  or  ingots 
that  cost  too  much.  But  if  there  Avere  any  mag- 
net that  would  point  to  the  countries  and  homes 
where  are  the  persons  who  are  intrinsically  rich 
and  powerful,  I  would  sell  all  and  buy  it,  and  put 
myself  on  the  road  to-day.'^ 

I  have  not  found  such  a  magnet,  but  I  have 
come  gladly  to-day  to  the  hills  and  valleys  of  the 
Sacramento  and  San  Gabriel,  not  for  gold,  but  to 
join  with  you  in  throwing  open  these  halls  for  the 
breeding  of  persons  '' intrinsically  rich  and  power- 
ful." 

For  what  is  a  college?  It  is  distinguished  from 
the  school  on  the  one  hand,  which  deals  with  the 
child  by  strict  discipline  and  teaches  the  elements 


Response  at  dedication  of  new  buildings  of  Occidental  College, 
Pasadena,  Cal.,  1914. 

257 


College  Fellowship 

of  knowledge,  and  from  the  university  on  the 
other,  which  is  concerned  for  knowledge  and  truth 
for  their  own  sake,  with  little  reference  to  the 
individual.  It  shares  with  the  school  its  care  for 
the  individual;  it  shares  with  the  university  its 
reverence  for  truth  as  the  great  pedagogue.  Its 
chief  business  is  to  make  men  and  women,  but 
to  make  them  not  by  blind  discipline  and  dog- 
matic teaching,  but  by  unfolding  to  them  the  won- 
drous stores  of  the  household  of  knowledge,  show- 
ing the  interrelations  of  truth,  and  leading  the 
young  man  and  young  woman  to  a  true  apprecia- 
tion of  themselves,  of  their  f  ellowmen,  and  of  the 
universe  of  which  they  are  a  part.  Because  the 
college  is  essentially  an  organization  of  people, 
because  it  is  an  organization  of  people  who  live 
with  the  true,  the  beautiful,  and  the  good,  because 
it  is  the  home  of  the  picked  youth  of  our  country 
in  their  prime,  and  with  all  the  glowing  possibil- 
ities of  the  future  germinating  mthin  them,  it  is 
not  strange  that  the  American  people  regard  the 
American  college  as  the  most  attractive  institu- 
tion of  the  world.  Even  crabbed  old  Carlyle, 
when  he  was  offered  a  professorship  at  Edinburgh, 
said:  *^ Cannot  I  make  for  myself  a  university  in 
any  quarter  of  the  Saxon  world,  by  simply  hir- 
ing a  lecture  room  and  beginning  to  speak?  Yet 
the  movement  of  these  young  lads  is  beautiful,  is 
pathetic  to  me,  a  young  generation  calling  me 
affectionately  home  (and  I  already  across  the 
irremedibilis  undo) . ' ' 

I  bring  then  to  Occidental   College,  greetings 
258 


College  Fellowship 

with  a  glad  heart,  and  urge  you  to  make  the  most 
of  your  calling,  and  to  be  always — no  matter  how 
rich  or  how  learned — a  place  of,  by,  and  for  per- 
sons, a  company  not  of  units  or  things,  but  of  in- 
dividuals. 

There  are  signs  that  the  learned  world  is  about 
to  recover  its  faith  in  the  unique  reality  and  in- 
dissolubility of  individuality.  We  find  the  signs 
even  in  the  kindergarten.  The  greatest  contribu- 
tion made  to  modern  pedagogy  by  Dr.  Montessori 
is  a  revival  of  the  belief  in  the  creative  energy  of 
the  human  soul.  The  stress  laid  upon  science  and 
scientific  method  the  last  century  had  well-nigh 
reduced  us  to  thinking  that  the  individual  was 
like  a  picture  puzzle,  whose  existence  depended 
entirely  on  a  proper  fitting  together  of  the  pieces, 
and  which  could  only  transmit  such  energy  as 
itself  first  received.  We  disregarded  all  that 
seemed  insignificant  for  scientific  study,  and  then 
like  Hamlet,  apostrophized  a  skull,  as  if  it  were 
the  living  person.  We  planned  college  curricula, 
as  if  college  men  were  merely  students,  and  as  a 
faculty,  put  on  the  goggles  of  science  and  igiiored 
all  the  other  aspects  of  the  college  student.  We 
had  a  sort  of  hearsay  notion  that  college  boys 
must  play,  must  exercise,  must  organize,  must 
strive  physically  and  even  dance  and  eat,  but  it 
seemed  wise  to  ignore  these  aspects  of  the  col- 
lege man,  so  that  these  things  came  to  be  known 
as  extra-curricula  activities.  The  one  other  activ- 
ity besides  study  which  even  a  faculty  could  not 
ignore  was  sleep,  and  the  recognition  of  that  fact 

259 


College  Fellowship 

is  forever  immortalized  in  the  name  dormitory, 
wliich  was  as  far  as  the  American  college  was 
prepared  to  go  in  recognizing  life.  But  a  more 
wholesome  age  is  daAvning.  Even  Darwin  was 
ready  to  admit  that  there  is  more  in  man  than  the 
breath  of  his  body. 

Politics  too  is  awaking  to  the  fact  that  this  is  a 
nation  of  persons,  not  primarily  of  property. 
Our  fathers  did  not  want  government  to  concern 
itself  with  persons  lest  their  freedom  be  impaired, 
and  consigned  to  government,  therefore,  the  less 
important  task  of  looking  after  property.  It  has 
been  a  sad  awakening,  therefore,  to  find — 

' '  'Tis  the  day  of  the  chattel,  web  to  weave,  corn  to  grind, 
Things  are  in  the  saddle  and  ride  mankind, ' ' 

but  having  discovered  it,  we  propose  to  readjust 
the  emphasis.  Dr.  Oppenheimer  of  the  Univer- 
sity of  Berlin,  who  has  recently  been  lecturing  at 
Johns  Hopkins,  is  hailed  as  a  second  Locke  or 
Rousseau,  because  he  enunciates  the  theory  that 
the  state  is  not  an  organization  of  property,  but 
of  persons. 

So  too  in  the  Church  we  see  the  same  redis- 
covery of  the  importance  and  uniqueness  of  the 
individual.  We  hear  the  cry  back  to  Christ,  the 
gospel  of  a  person.  A  recent  writer  says :  ' '  The 
message  intrusted  to  the  Son  of  God  when  he 
came  to  be  the  Savior  of  mankind  was  not  only 
something  w^hich  he  knew  and  taught,  it  was  some- 
thing which  he  w^as."     Our  faith  is  faith  in  a  liv- 

260 


College  Fellowship 

iiig  person,  not  in  a  dead  event  or  an  imprisoned 
force. 

And  because  the  college  is  personality  at  its 
best,  because  it  holds  and  molds  our  picked  men 
and  women  in  the  very  flower  of  their  strength, 
we  may  look  for  new  faith  and  enthusiasm  for  the 
college  which  is  true  to  its  function. 

What  are  some  of  these  persons  of  whom,  by 
whom,  and  for  whom  the  college  is?  We  think 
to-day  first  of  the  men  and  women  who  have  made 
possible  these  new  buildings.  Of  the  men  and 
women  whose  magnificent  gift  for  endowment 
crow^ns  a  life  of  helpfulness.  They  are  not  to  be 
pitied,  but  envied.  They  have  parted  with  wealth, 
they  have  gained  personality.  "What  we  do," 
says  a  lecturer  at  the  University  of  Wisconsin, 
"makes  us  w^hat  we  are."  "We  have  studied  the 
effect  of  material  surroundings  upon  character, 
and  find  it  to  be  deep  and  constant;  but  man  is 
modified  far  more  by  exertion  than  by  environ- 
ment. To  be  surrounded  by  beauty  and  right  con- 
struction is  of  value,  but  far  more  valuable  is  it 
to  make  things  beautiful  and  right.  Better  make 
palaces  and  live  in  a  hut,  than  to  make  huts  and 
live  in  a  palace."  Well  may  w^e  congratulate  to- 
day, therefore,  the  fortunate  donors  who  have 
had  a  hand  in  the  building  of  these  splendid  build- 
ings. Well  may  we  congratulate  Occidental  that 
it  begins  its  new  era  with  friends  thus  rewarded 
and  enriched. 

Second,  we  think  of  the  president,  planner  and 
261 


College  Fellowship 

creator  both  of  the  material  college  and  of  thai 
immaterial  atmosphere  which  molds  the  souls 
of  students.  Nowhere  is  the  power  and  reality  of 
personality  more  manifest  than  in  the  college  pres- 
ident. I  have  found  reproduced  in  the  humblest 
employee  of  a  great  industrial  organization  like 
a  railroad  the  attitude  and  point  of  view  of  the 
president  of  the  system.  In  the  same  way,  if  one 
sits  long  with  a  college  faculty,  he  will  find  in 
the  president's  personality  the  key  to  many  a 
psychological  attitude.  Real  personalities  are 
not  as  plentiful  as  Ph.D.  's,  and  Occidental  is  rich 
in  its  president. 

Third,  we  think  of  the  faculty.  The  alumnus 
and  the  learned  world  think  of  them  first.  Lucky 
indeed  is  the  college  which  has  more  than  one  man 
to  whom  its  students  can  point  and  say  in  later 
years — Because  of  that  man,  I  am  what  I  am. 
And  wise  is  the  college  president  who  so  conceives 
his  fellowship  of  persons,  as  to  realize,  as  Presi- 
dent Eliot  has  said,  that  the  selection  of  profes- 
sors is  his  first  and  most  difficult  task. 

And  fourth,  the  students,  men  and  women,  I 
trust,  prepared  to  work  at  their  job. 

Sentiment  in  the  East  has  veered  sharply  the 
last  few  years.  College  authorities  have  been 
under  fire.  The  community  is  not  prepared  to 
tolerate  inefficiency  in  its  colleges  any  more  than 
in  its  railroads.  If  college  is  primarily  a  place 
to  study,  thf;  community  demands  that  the  college 
man  be  a  student.  If  colleges  exist  to  teach  men 
to  think,  the  community  demands  that  the  college 

262 


College  Fellowship 

man  learn  to  tliink  clearly  and  with  precision. 
If  colleges  are  to  mold  character,  the  community 
demands  that  discipline,  whether  imposed  from 
within  or  without,  which  distinguishes  between 
the  man  that  is  there  and  the  man  that  is  not 
there,  which  tightens  fiber  and  sinew  and  frowns 
on  moral  tlabbiness. 

Finally,  as  we  survey  the  college,  the  company 
of  persons  thus  assembled,  the  builders,  the  presi- 
dent, the  professors  and  the  students,  if  we  are 
of  those  who  have  tried  their  hand  at  making  with 
these  persons  a  true  home  of  the  intrinsically 
rich  and  powerful,  we  shall  be  ready  to  admit  the 
circle  still  incomplete,  and  to  say  with  Browning — 

' '  But  I  need,  now  as  then, 
Thee,  God,  who  mouldest  men." 

Only  then  do  we  reach  the  highest  development 
of  personality,  when  His  spirit  testifies  with  our 
spirit  that  we  are  the  sons  of  God. 

The  cry  to-day,  as  ever,  is  God  give  us  men. 
And  God  answers  the  cry.  Sometimes  the  school 
is  the  carpenter's  shop,  sometimes  the  forge,  some- 
times the  farm,  and  we  ask,  "How  has  this  man 
learning,  having  never  learned?"  More  often 
to-day  the  school  is  the  college,  a  college  like  Occi- 
dental. So  noteworthy  of  late  has  been  its  con- 
tribution, that  we  think  of  the  college  as  represent- 
ing and  perpetuating  the  intellectual  interests  of 
the  community,  and  are  ready  to  say  with  a  recent 
writer:  '^Without  the  proper  protection  and  en- 
dowment of  these  interests  the  Church  would  lan- 

263 


College  Fellowship 

guish,  its  altar  fires  burn  out,  and  its  pulpits  be- 
come dumb;  life  become  narrow,  literature  die." 

The  college  then  is  made  by  persons  who  give 
and  grow  in  the  giving,  of  persons  who  teach  and 
leani  in  the  teaching,  for  persons  who  learn  and 
live  in  the  learning.  For  the  college — men  are 
at  once  material,  tool  and  product. 

To  such  high  uses  these  buildings  are  opened 
to-day,  and  to  so  great  a  work  I  bring  the  greet- 
ing and  Godspeed  of  the  College  Board  and  of  the 
Presbyterian  colleges  scattered  throughout  the 
states. 


264 


THE  COLLEGE  PRESIDENT 

LIFE,  Mr.  President,  has  been  defined  as  the 
power  of  adjustment  to  new  conditions. 

A  son  of  Illinois,  you  found  an  Alma  Mater  in 
Ohio,  and  tarried  long  enough  in  that  state  to  see 
a  cycle  of  high  school  students  pass,  and  to  claim 
not  only  an  Alma  Mater,  but  a  bride. 

Thus  dowered  and  equipped,  you  sought  the  far 
Pacific  and  for  a  decade  have  worked  arduously 
laying  foundations  for  an  enduring  civilization, 
where  rolls  the  Oregon.  But  it  is  not  prodigal 
sons  alone  who  take  their  journey  into  a  far 
country  and  who  return,  nor  for  them  alone  do  we 
bring  out  the  new  gown  and  hood,  and  kill  the 
fatted  calf.  In  a  single  stride  you  have  stepped 
across  two-thirds  of  a  continent. 

And  we,  your  friends,  who  have  watched  you 
grow  through  these  years,  who  have  watched  your 
power  of  adjustment  to  new  conditions,  are  here 
to  give  our  encouragement  and  to  bid  you  God- 
speed in  this  new  life  upon  which  you  are  enter- 
ing. 

We  want  to  see  you  safely  and  snugly  fitted  into 
these  new  surroundings. 

There  is  always  danger  in  taking  the  fly  wheel 
off  one  engine  and  placing  it  upon  another.     If 


Address  at  the  inauguration  of  Harry  Means  Crooks  as  Presi- 
ident  of  Alma  College,  Alma,  Michigan,  November,  1916. 

265 


The  College  President 

there  is  not  proper  balance,  it  may  fail  to  move  the 
engine,  or  race  so  fast  that  it  flies  itself  into  pieces. 
It  is  risky  to  borrow  a  demonntable  rim  from  a 
passing  car  and  transfer  it  to  your  own.  When 
you  fit  it,  it  may  be  too  small  for  your  wheel,  or 
may  prove  so  big  that  its  demountableness  is  un- 
duly developed  and  while  big  and  splendid  in  every 
way,  you  find  it  will  not  stay  with  you  long  enough 
to  pay  you  for  the  time  you  spent  tightening  up 
the  wedges. 

But  they  know  a  good  deal  about  such  things 
out  here  in  Michigan,  at  least,  so  I  have  been  told 
in  Detroit,  and  are  taking  no  risks.  When  they 
want  a  Presbyterian  college  president,  they  select 
one  made  in  a  Presbyterian  foundry  and  tested 
out  on  Presbyterian  proving  grounds,  and  the  re- 
sult is,  it  fits. 

And  we  w^ho  have  been  called  on  to  turn  a  screw 
here,  or  adjust  a  bearing  there,  have  little  to  do 
that  really  matters.  Charge  the  president!  He 
is  already  charged  and  surcharged  with  routine 
of  ten  long  successful  years.  It  is  left  for  us  to 
oil  the  machine,  to  advance  or  retard  the  spark, 
or  perhaps  to  pump  a  little  more  air  into  the  shock 
absorbers. 

Dr.  Foulkes,  I  hope,  is  going  to  look  into  the 
gasoline  tank  of  the  machine,  and  warn  the  trus- 
tees of  the  dangers  of  letting  the  supply  get  low, 
I  am  expected  to  explain  the  mechanism  of  the 
steering  wheel.  If  Dr.  Foulkes  is  to  talk  about 
the  gasoline  that  makes  the  car  go,  I  am  to  talk 
about  ignition  and  pressure  gauge,  in  a  word, 

266 


The  College  President 

about  the  president  that  makes  the  car  go  faster 
(or  slower,  as  sometimes  happens)  and  determines 
the  direction. 

Some  of  you,  no  doubt,  think  that  I  have  my 
metaphors  mixed,  that  it  is  the  president's  job  to 
keep  the  tank  filled  and  crank  the  car,  and  when 
he  has  the  engine  running  to  jump  into  the  rumble 
and  fold  his  arms  and  watch  which  way  the  trus- 
tees and  faculty  in  the  front  seat  go.  Or,  per- 
haps, if  it  is  a  larger  touring  car  and  there  are 
seats  for  four,  the  alumni  and  football  coach  may 
have  a  share  in  its  operation.  But  this  idea  of  a 
driver  to  fill  the  tank,  crank  the  car,  wash  it  when 
it  is  dirty,  and  put  on  new  tires  when  there  is  a 
puncture,  smacks  of  aristocracy.  We  are  believ- 
ers in  democracy  and  in  that  kind  of  democracy 
lauded  by  the  scripture,  ''For  that  the  leaders 
took  the  lead  in  Israel,  for  that  the  people  offered 
themselves  willingly,  Bless  ye  the  Lord." 

First  then,  Mr.  President,  I  charge  you,  lead 
Alma,  or  to  stick  to  our  motor  metaphor,  steer 
Alma.  The  responsibility  for  steering  implies  of 
course  responsibility  for  steerage  way.  Whether 
the  wind  will  fill  your  sails,  if  there  is  any  wind, 
will  depend  upon  the  way  you  hold  your  helm. 
How  many  miles  you  will  get  from  a  gallon  will 
depend  on  your  manipulation  of  your  throttle,  and 
on  your  judicious  admixture  of  the  proper  propor- 
tion of  air  and  gas. 

Of  course,  if  there  is  no  wind  stirring  at  all,  it 
is  idle  for  you  to  stay  at  the  tiller,  you  may  as 
well  go  out  and  raise  the  wind ;  if  there  is  no  gas- 

267 


The  College  President 

oline  in  your  tank,  you  cannot  steer  by  sitting  at 
the  wheel,  you  must  either  get  out  and  fill  the  tank 
or  get  some  one  to  fill  it  for  you.  That  is  inci- 
dental to  leadership  of  any  kind.  The  bravest, 
most  original,  most  daring  general  at  the  front 
can  do  nothing  in  the  present  war,  unless  his  sup- 
ply of  munitions  is  w^ell  organized. 

But,  remember,  if  you  can  remember  it  through 
the  toilsome  days,  that  putting  the  gasoline  into 
the  tank  is  incidental.  We  put  gasoline  into  the 
tank  that  the  car  may  go,  and  go  whither  we  would 
have  it  go.  We  do  not  run  the  car  for  the  purpose 
of  finding  gasoline  at  the  next  garage. 

If  there  is  danger  of  America  being  absorbed 
in  money  getting  for  its  own  sake,  there  is  also 
danger  that  college  presidents  may  catch  the  same 
disease.  College  presidents  in  these  days  are 
necessarily  business  men,  but  American  education 
Avill  lose  much  and  gain  little  if  these  college  presi- 
dents become  such  business  men  that  they  know 
better  how  a  dollar  may  be  saved  or  made,  than 
they  know  how  a  dollar  may  be  spent  to  the  wel- 
fare and  progress  of  mankind.  The  American 
business  man  may  say,  ''I  enjoy  winning  the 
money,  but  I  will  leave  it  to  my  wife  to  find  out 
what  it  is  good  for."  But  no  true  college  presi- 
dent can  ever  say,  ''I  have  a  dollar  and  no  way 
to  spend  it  that  seems  worth  while." 

If,  then,  my  first  charge  is  steer  Alma,  my  sec- 
ond is  steer  Alma  somewhere.  Have  a  destina- 
tion in  view.  Don't  merely  go  for  a  ride.  The 
police  president  in  Berlin  last  week  forbade  the 

268 


The  College  President 

use  of  taxicabs  for  joy  riding.  You  may  ride  to 
business  in  a  taxi  or  to  a  train,  but  you  cannot 
ride  to  a  theater  or  moving  picture  show  in  a  taxi. 
And  the  remarkable  thing,  as  the  papers  remark, 
is  that  it  is  left  to  the  chauffeur  to  decide  whether 
you  are  riding  for  pleasure  or  on  business.  It 
would  be  a  good  thing  if  our  American  public 
were  a  little  more  willing  to  leave  it  to  our  presi- 
dential chauffeurs  to  say  what  is  joy  riding  and 
what  is  legitimate  progression  for  college  boys 
and  girls. 

A  Philadelphia  lawyer  who  had  been  debating 
the  curriculum  of  the  University  of  Pennsylvania 
with  the  faculty  said  to  me  last  spring,  ''The  more 
I  talk  with  the  faculty,  the  more  I  realize  that 
while  I  have  a  pretty  clear  picture  of  the  kind  of 
man  that  I  want  the  university  to  produce,  the 
members  of  the  faculty  have  no  such  vision.  They 
are  content  each  to  do  his  particular  work  and 
let  the  resultant  product  prove  what  it  will." 

Decide,  Mr.  President,  what  kind  of  boy  or  girl 
you  want  Alma  to  turn  out,  and  having  decided, 
adapt  your  means  to  that  end.  No  matter  whether 
it  be  the  same  kind  of  product  as  that  of  the  Uni- 
versity of  Michigan,  or  Albion,  or  Olivet,  pro- 
vided it  is  what  it  professes  to  be,  provided  it  is 
the  true  Alma  brand. 

It  is  not  enough  to  be  on  the  go,  you  must  be 
going  somewhere  if  it  is  to  be  worth  while.  It  has 
been  said  that  the  favorite  book  of  the  college 
president  of  to-day  is  the  mileage  book,  with  whicti 
he  can  travel  equally  well  in  either  direction.    ±Je- 

269 


The  College  President 

ware  of  the  autometer  habit.  Your  credit  as  a 
college  president  will  not  be  measured  by  the  num- 
ber of  miles  your  institution  reels  off.  It  will  be 
judged  by  the  character  of  the  destination  to  which 
you  bring  your  young  men  and  women,  be  the 
journey  long  or  short.  The  name  of  the  institu- 
tion you  are  to  guide  suggests  that  old  poem  of 
Matthew  Prior,  written  over  two  hundred  years 
ago,  entitled,  "Alma  or  the  Progress  of  Mind," 
which  begins  as  some  of  you  may  recall: 

"Alma  in  verse — in  prose  the  mind 
By  Aristotle's  pen  defined 
Throughout  the  body  squat  or  tall 
Is  bona  fide,  All  in  All, 
And  yet,  slap  dash,  is  All  again, 
In  every  sinew,  nerve  and  vein, 
Runs  here  and  there,  like  Hamlet's  ghost, 
While  everywhere  she  rules  the  roast. ' ' 

Now  it  is  not  the  college  president  Prior  is  re- 
ferring to  in  those  lines: 

' '  Runs  here  and  there,  like  Hamlet 's  ghost. 
While  everywhere  she  rules  the  roast, ' ' 

but  to  Alma  which  is  poetry's  word  for  mind,  and 
he  goes  on  to  discuss  the  two  theories,  the  one 
that  the  mind  is  to  be  found  in  all  parts  of  the 
body,  the  other  that  the  mind  has  its  own  peculiar 
seat  in  the  brain,  and  must  receive  the  informa- 
tion and  execute  its  decrees  through  the  mediation 
of  the  nerves. 
It  reminds  us  of  that  most  perplexing  problem 
270 


The  College  President 

of  the  college  president  of  to-day,  what  is  educa- 
tion, does  it  reside  in  the  toe  of  the  football  player 
or  in  the  voice  of  the  glee  club  singer  or  in  the 
brain  of  the  student? 

' '  Alma,  they  strenuously  maintain, 
Sits  cock  horse  on  her  throne,  the  brain. 
And  from  that  seat  of  thought  dispenses — 
Her  sovereign  pleasure  to  the  senses, 
The  scholars  of  the  Stagyrite, 
Who  for  the  old  opinion  fight,  maintain. 
The  mind  as  visibly  is  seen 
Extended  through  the  whole  machine. 
"Why  should  all  honor  thus  be  taken, 
From  lower  parts  to  load  the  brain. 
When  other  limbs  we  plainly  see, 
Each  in  his  way,  as  brisk  as  he  ? " 

Prior,  being  a  broad-minded  president,  suggests 
a  compromise: 

"That  Alma  enters  at  the  toes 
That  then  she  mounts  by  just  degrees 
Up  to  the  ankles,  legs  and  knees,  thighs. 
And  all  the^e  under  regions  past 
She  nestles  somewhere  near  the  waist. 
Gives  pain  and  pleasure,  grief  or  laughter 
As  we  shall  show  at  large  hereafter. 
Mature,  if  not  improved  by  time. 
Up  to  the  heart  she  loves  to  climb. 
From  thence  compelled  by  craft  and  age 
She  makes  the  head  at  latest  stage. 
From  the  feet  upward  to  the  head 
Pithy  and  short  says  Dick  proceed. ' ' 

As  your  blue  book  for  the  journeys  upon  which 
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The  College  President 

you  must  guide  this  modern  Alma  I  suggest  to 
you  this  rich  old  rhyme  of  Prior.  He  willed  his 
poems,  you  may  remember,  to  the  college  of  St. 
John  the  Evangelist  at  Cambridge,  of  which  Mr. 
Austin  Dobson  remarks,  even  with  the  copy  of 
1718,  Johnson  might  have  knocked  down  Osborn 
the  book  seller. 

If  Alma  College,  because  of  its  radiant  youth, 
can  be  the  practical  synonym  of  mind,  you  will 
have  a  trade-mark  brand  worth  while,  and  if  your 
presidential  tour  can  enter  in  at  the  toes  of  your 
football  team,  and  journey  with  the  mind  upward 
through  the  whole  frame,  so  that  all  of  college 
life  shall  be  pervaded  with  mind,  be  wise  and  be 
reasonable,  it  will  be  a  royal  progress  indeed,  an 
automobile  trip  for  which  even  a  college  president 
need  not  be  ashamed  to  act  as  chauffeur. 

And  my  third  and  last  charge  is  not  only  to 
steer  Alma,  not  only  to  steer  Alma  somewhere, 
but  to  select  the  society  of  Alma,  and  if  possible 
stir  and  inspire  their  souls. 

We  may  jest  if  we  wall,  with  mechanical  meta- 
phors. "We  may  talk  of  our  educational  shop,  of 
our  diploma  factory,  of  our  refectoiy  or  our  dor- 
mitory, the  fact  remains  that  what  makes  the 
work  of  the  college  president  important  and  pecu- 
liarly worth  while,  is  that  it  is  a  work  with,  by 
and  for  persons,  nay  more,  that  it  is  a  work  with 
the  choicest  spirits  at  their  most  attractive  age. 
This  is  at  once  its  greatest  responsibility  and  its 
greatest  reward.  Not  the  road  we  go  then,  not 
the  city  at  which  we  arrive,  but  the  companions 

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The  College  President 

of  our  journey  and  the  songs  of  their  hearts  should 
be  our  great  concern. 

If  you  ask  then  what  is  the  college  president's 
greatest  work,  I  answer,  '^determining  the  spirit- 
ual atmosphere  of  his  college."  When  I  was  a 
college  president  in  the  West,  and  traveled  long 
distances  over  many  railroads,  I  used  to  think 
that  I  could  detect  in  the  attitude  and  spirit  of 
the  brakeman  or  conductor  the  attitude  and  spirit 
of  the  president  of  the  road.  So  it  is  in  every 
organization.  There  is  a  dominant  spirit  which 
sets  the  key.  If  material  gain,  if  more  endow- 
ment, more  buildings,  larger  enrollment,  dominate 
your  thought,  the  acquisition  of  the  material  things 
of  life  will  dominate  the  thought  and  lives  of  your 
faculty  and  your  students.  If  victory  in  sports, 
if  popular  applause,  if  ephemeral  honors  weigh 
with  you,  these  things  will  weigh  with  the  last 
freshman.  If  truth  and  beauty  and  righteousness 
are  the  supreme  concern  of  your  life,  they  will 
not  be  lacking  in  the  spirits  of  your  companions. 

If  you  look  forward  to  a  city  which  has  foun- 
dations whose  maker  and  builder  is  God,  those 
who  ride  with  you,  while  they  may  doubt  your 
making  it  before  nightfall,  will  ride  with  brighter 
eyes,  and  more  radiant  faces,  and  will  dwell  less 
on  the  roughness  of  the  roads,  the  poor  food,  the 
crowded  inns. 

Because  too  of  this  transforming  power  of  the 
spirit,  the  college  president  will  regard  the  selec- 
tion of  his  associates  in  the  faculty  as  his  most  im- 
portant task.     If  he  can  fill  his  faculty  with  men 

273 


The  College  President 

and  women  of  right  stamp,  and  spirit,  the  rest 
will  come  of  itself.  Like  President  Hyde  of  Bow- 
doin,  you  can  feel  that  you  have  earned  your  year's 
salary  when  you  have  secured  three  good  men  for 
your  faculty.  And  having  found  them,  live  not 
only  for  them,  but  with  them. 

In  Spenser's  ''Fairie  Queene,"  Alma  is  Queen 
of  Bod}"  Castle,  is  the  soul  dwelling  in  the  body  of 
the  House  of  Temperance.  Preser\"e  if  you  can 
such  a  vision  of  the  Alma  you  are  to  know  here. 
Never  think  of  her  as  land  and  buildings  and  en- 
dowments, but  think  of  her  as  a  spirit  animating 
the  souls  of  her  men  and  her  maidens,  molding 
her  material  equipment  to  spiritual  ends,  a  spirit 
which  through  her  alumni  and  her  faculty  shall 
pervade  and  energize  this  commonwealth  for  prog- 
ress and  for  righteousness. 


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THE  EDUCATION  OF  WOMEN 

UNLIKE  my  brother,  the  President  of  Vassar, 
I  know  little  of  the  education  of  women,  and 
I  should  not  have  ventured  to  accept  the  invita- 
tion to  speak  to  the  graduates  of  Queens  College, 
had  the  invitation  come  from  any  one  else  than  my 
old  friend,  Dr.  McGeachy.  In  the  closing  days  of 
the  century.  Dr.  McGeachy  used  to  shoot  quail  and 
I  used  to  help  him  eat  them,  out  in  the  Kingdom 
of  Calloway.  He  used  to  preach  and  I  used  to 
practice,  and  both  of  us  used  to  be  petted  and  ex- 
ceedingly well  cared  for  by  our  delightful  adopted 
mother,  a  charming  lady  of  the  good  old  South. 
For  these  reasons,  I  am  in  this  predicament  to-day, 
not  that  I  have  anything  of  great  worth  to  say 
to  you,  but  in  token  of  my  regard  for  my  foster 
brother.  Dr.  McGeachy,  and  in  recognition  of  the 
debt  I  owe  him  for  the  fellowship  of  many  years 
ago. 

It  has  never  been  my  fortune  to  teach  even  in 
a  coeducational  college,  let  alone  in  a  college  for 
women.  We  had  two  girls'  colleges  in  that  Mis- 
souri town,  but  I  cannot  recall  that  I  ever  ad- 
dressed them,  while  Dr.  McGeachy  was,  I  know, 
very  much  in  demand  as  a  speaker  before  them 
both,  and  though  I  have  been  a  teacher  of  psychol- 

Address   at    the  commencement   of   Queens    College,   Charlotte, 
N.  C,  May,  1919. 

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The  Education  of  Women 

ogy  and  taught  the  President  of  Vassar  all  the- 
jisycliology  ho  learned  as  an  undergraduate,  he 
Avould,  if  he  were  here,  tell  you  quite  as  frankly  as 
I  do,  that  I  do  not  understand  female  psychology. 
I,  however,  would  be  willing  to  go  further  than  he 
would  go,  and  add  that  T  do  not  believe  anybody 
else  does,  for  that  matter. 

I  feel,  therefore,  that  I  am  perhaps  rash  in 
venturing  the  statement,  which  I  propose  to  make 
the  subject  of  the  few  remarks  I  have  to  make 
this  morning,  that  if  we  were  to  gather  up  the 
aspirations  and  thoughts  and  ambitions  of  the 
young  womanhood  of  America,  who  like  you  of 
Queens  College  are  completing  their  college 
courses,  and  attempt  to  name  these  desires,  often 
imperfectly  understood,  rarely  ever  defined,  even 
to  yourselves,  in  a  single  word,  that  single  word 
would  not  be  knowledge,  or  wealth,  or  love,  or 
power,  or  fame,  but  life.  Eobert  Grant  in  his 
recent  article  on  the  limits  of  feminine  independ- 
ence rather  misses  the  point  and  shows  an  extra- 
ordinary ignorance  of  styles  for  a  Boston  judge, 
w^hen  he  says,  ''Women's  nature  has  not  changed 
as  the  result  of  the  war,  she  has  merely  ceased  to 
wear  hobbles."  Something  much  more  funda- 
mental has  happened.  More  than  in  any  preced- 
ing age,  because  more  intelligent  and  freer  from 
restraint,  because,  too,  rendered  economically  in- 
dependent by  the  many  occupations  opened  to 
women,  the  number  of  which  has  been  greatly  mul- 
tiplied by  the  war,  the  young  women  of  our  age 
are  determined,  as  they  say,  to  live,  to  run  the 

276 


The  Education  of  Women 

gamut  of  the  emotions,  to  test  the  heights  of 
human  joy  and  the  depths  of  human  suffering, 
to  help  unflinching  in  the  pursuit  of  truth,  to  win 
again  for  woman  that  equal  standing  among  the 
divinities  of  Olympus  which  ancient  Greece  was 
so  ready  to  yield  to  Juno,  to  Venus  and  to  Diana. 

If  I  were  called  upon  not  as  a  theologian,  but  as 
a  psychologist  to  write  the  creed  of  American 
womanhood,  I  should  be  tempted  to  write  it  in  the 
words  of  John  Ruskin,  "There  is  no  wealth  but 
life.  Life  including  all  the  powers  of  love,  of  joy, 
and  of  admiration.  That  country  is  the  richest 
which  nourishes  the  greater  number  of  noble  and 
lofty  beings;  that  man  (or  woman)  is  richest  who 
having  perfected  the  functions  of  his  own  life  to 
the  utmost  has  also  the  widest  helpful  influence, 
both* personal  and  by  means  of  his  possessions, 
over  the  lives  of  others." 

There  is  no  wealth  but  life,  that  is  what  the 
American  woman  is  saying  to  herself  again  and 
again,  as  she  hurries  on  from  experience  to  expe- 
rience. And  because  woman  naturally  expresses 
life  in  emotion  rather  than  in  idea,  in  feeling 
rather  than  in  thought,  in  concrete  rather  than  in 
abstract  terms,  she  is  less  content  to  take  her  expe- 
rience at  second  hand  than  is  her  brother.  A 
second-hand  idea  is  a  very  serviceable  thing.  In- 
deed, according  to  Plato  and  his  school,  all  ideas 
are  second  hand  except  the  prototype  from  which 
they  spring;  but  a  second-hand  emotion  is  stale 
and  profitless.  The  emotions  which  are  provoked 
by  novel  reading  or  by  motion  pictures  are  not  as 

277 


The  Education  of  Women 

poic:nant  or  as  vital  as  the  emotions  which  spring 
from  your  own  immediate  experience  in  the  world 
of  sense,  but  at  least  they  are  first-hand  emotions. 
The  tears  may  be  provoked  by  a  fairy  tale,  but 
they  are  real  tears,  and  even  in  supreme  tragedy 
Mary  perhaps  by  the  wonderful  power  of  womanly 
sympathy  feels  even  more  keenly  than  Jesus  the 
piercing  sword  in  her  breast. 

No  one  who  fails  to  understand  that  woman 
measures  life  in  terms  of  emotion,  where  man 
measures  it  in  terms  of  action  or  of  idea,  can,  I 
think,  comprehend  very  clearly  the  social  move- 
ments of  our  time.  And  any  one  who  wants  to 
write  a  philosophy  of  education  for  w^omen  must 
be  prepared  to  tell  us  how  you  can  label,  and 
classify  and  store  away  in  books  emotions,  so 
that  they  will  still  remain  emotions  when  intro- 
duced as  the  lessons  of  to-morrow.  Words  are  a 
convenient  legal  tender  for  the  circulation  of  the 
silver  of  ideas;  are  they  equally  serviceable  as  a 
legal  tender  for  the  precious  gold  of  emotions? 
Can  we  rely  as  much  on  the  printed  page,  or  must 
we  use  living  leaders  and  teachers? 

Now  the  first  danger  which  to  an  outsider  seems 
likely  to  lie  in  wait  to  entrap  an  adventurer  guided 
by  the  philosophy,  "there  is  no  wealth  but  life," 
is  the  assumption  that  any  experience  which  comes 
along  in  life,  with  an  emotional  content,  just  be- 
cause it  is  life  is  wealth.  To  he,  in  other  words,  is 
according  to  this  philosophy  so  infinitely  superior 
to  not  being  that  other  petty  distinctions  of  value 
sink  into  insignificance.     Just  to  be  alive  is  in- 

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The  Education  of  Women 

finitely  more  significant  and  of  far  greater  value 
than  to  be  true  or  to  be  beautiful  or  to  be  good. 

Life  according  to  this  view  is  a  two  dimensioned 
affair,  it  is  long  and  it  is  wide.  It  is  to  be  reached 
by  movement  and  travel,  the  mud  holes  taken 
with  the  macadam,  the  hills  with  the  valleys,  the 
swamps  with  the  sands,  the  jungles  with  the  moun- 
tain tops.  Ancient  philosophers  used  to  point  out 
the  absolute  uniqueness  of  the  right  hand  and  the 
left  hand  in  that  they  defied  absolutely  the  phil- 
osopher's attempt  to  reduce  all  things  to  unity, 
because  laid  upon  a  flat  surface  no  juggling  would 
convert  a  left  hand  into  a  right  hand.  There  was 
an  irreducible  difference  which  could  not  be  got- 
ten rid  of.  So  of  this  surface  philosophy  of  life. 
The  interesting  thing  about  land  is  that  every  bit 
has  its  own  position  on  the  surface  of  the  earth. 
Here  is  not  there,  and  there  is  not  here,  and  how- 
ever much  two  fields  may  look  alike,  they  differ  in 
this  ineradicable  quality  of  location.  It  is  the 
same  sort  of  an  ineradicable  quality  of  location 
in  the  surface  of  experience,  which  the  womanhood 
of  America  urges  as  giving  to  all  experience,  how- 
ever trite  in  the  history  of  the  race,  a  claim  to 
uniqueness  and  to  value,  and  nothing  is  gained  by 
denying  this  fact.  My  joy  is  not  your  joy.  My 
sorrow  is  not  your  sorrow.  Consequently  woman 
is  apt  to  be  impatient  with  the  educator  or  school 
master  who  would  fence  off  the  bogs  of  life  and 
leave  only  the  safe  highways  to  serve  for  her  jour- 
neyings.  Man  has  been  a  little  too  ready  to  assert, 
You  may  make  the  kitchen  fire,  but  the  ballot 

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The  Education  of  Women 

would  soil  your  bauds.  It  is  uot  for  the  lower 
animals  alone  that  a  fence  adds  peculiar  sweetness 
to  the  pasture  just  outside.  And  in  the  case  of 
woman  it  is  sheer  waste  of  time  to  try  to  build 
them.  You  must  put  your  trust  rather  in  guiding 
stars  or  in  haunting  pipes  of  Pan. 

As  you  all  know  we  have  recently  passed  through 
a  period  in  literature,  in  art,  in  music,  if  indeed, 
we  are  through  it,  which  we  dubbed  realism,  which 
was  based  on  the  kind  of  a  two  dimensioned  phil- 
osophy to  which  I  have  referred.  A  thing  need 
only  be,  according  to  this  philosophy,  to  be  worth 
while.  Other  scales  of  values  sank  into  insignifi- 
cance before  this  stupendous  fact.  Making  edu- 
cation universal  w^as  like  removing  the  scales  from 
the  eyes  of  the  blind,  and  the  same  thing  hap- 
pened.    The  novitiates  saw  things  flat. 

It  was  against  this  art  destroying  two  dimen- 
sioned philosophy  that  Whistler  wrote  so  elo- 
quently in  protest : 

''Nature  contains  the  elements  in  color  and  form 
of  all  pictures,  as  the  keyboard  contains  the  notes 
of  all  music.  But  the  artist  is  bom  to  pick  and 
choose,  and  group  with  science  these  elements,  that 
the  result  may  be  beautiful — as  the  musician  gath- 
ers his  notes,  and  forms  his  chords,  until  he  brings 
forth  from  chaos  glorious  harmony.  To  say  to  the 
painter  that  Nature  is  to  be  taken  as  she  is,  is  to 
say  to  the  player,  that  he  may  sit  on  the  piano, ' ' — 
which  w^as,  by  the  way,  about  what  Strauss  did. 

Nor  is  it  strange  that  a  period  which  overvalued 
reality,  should  have  been  followed  by  the  futurists 

280 


The  Education  of  Women 

who  deny  reality  all  significance  and  declare  all 
that  matters  is  the  way  you  see  it.  The  world  of 
art  and  literature  and  music,  somewhat  in  advance 
of  the  broader  world  of  womanhood's  hopes  and 
aspirations,  has  passed,  I  trust  forever,  beyond  the 
fallacies  of  a  two  dimensioned  philosophy,  and  in 
view  of  that  fact  in  the  twenty  minutes  allowed  me 
by  Dr.  McGeachy,  I  want  to  set  up  at  the  cross- 
roads of  Hfe  at  which  you  now  stand  a  bit  of  a 
danger  sign  in  the  form  of  a  question  mark  after 
the  creed,  Life  is  Wealth,  lest  you  choose  inad- 
vertently the  way  to  this  arid  desert  and  lose  time 
in  the  pursuit  of  life  thereby. 

William  Hard  in  his  striking  editorial  on  Theo- 
dore Roosevelt  at  the  time  of  his  death,  pointed  out 
that  the  great  characteristic  of  Roosevelt  was  that 
with  all  his  zest  for  life  and  his  readiness  to  live 
life  to  the  full,  with  all  the  many  sidedness  of  his 
genius,  he  knew  poisons  and  displayed  no  militant 
interest  in  testing  them.  His  experience  was  a 
discriminating  experience.  He  was  content  to 
submit  for  example  to  the  bounds  of  family  life. 
Moral  morasses  held  no  appeal  to  him  as  a  moral 
naturalist.  He  would  hunt  big  game  in  Africa 
and  trace  unknowm  flora  and  fauna  in  South  Amer- 
ica, but  his  adventurous  spirit  never  tempted  him 
to  flirt  with  evil,  or  pursue  unclean  spirits  to  dis- 
cover the  sociological  status  of  their  foul  smelling 
homes  in  the  swamp. 

There  was  a  teacher  nineteen  centuries  ago,  too, 
who  had  a  creed  that  Life  was  Wealth.  ''I  am 
come,"  he  said,  "that  they  might  have  life  and 

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The  Education  of  Women 

might  have  it  more  abundantly," — and  yet  so  nar- 
row were  the  limits  of  the  way  of  this  abundant 
life,  that  his  disciples  came  to  be  known  as  pre- 
eminently those  "of  the  way."    What  made  it  a 
way?     Not  a  fence  but  a  goal  to  be  reached.    In 
order  that  this  life  you  see  may  be  worth  while, 
you  must  have  some  sort  of  an  ideal  or  guiding 
star.     A  man  may  roam  at  random  on  a  prairie, 
but  to  climb  a  mountain  you  must  stick  to  the  trail. 
Your  college  bears  the  proud  title  of  Queens — 
a  title  somewhat  at  a  discount,  perhaps,  just  now, 
but  the  idea  behind  the  title  was  never  more  widely 
cherished  than  to-day.     When  the  Presbyterians 
abolished  bishops  they  did  it  by  making  all  min- 
isters bishops.    When  it  was  proposed  to  abolish 
titles  in  the  French  Revolution,  the  suggestion  was 
made  that  a  more  effective  way  would  be  to  give 
every  one  a  title.     It  is  not  so  much  that  the  world 
of  to-day  does  not  want  kings  and  queens  as  that 
all  want  to  be  kings  and  queens.     But  remember 
noblesse  oblige, — nobility  binds.     You  are  all  fa- 
miliar with  the  doctrine  of  sovereignty  here  in 
North  Carolina.    The  old  political  scientists  used 
to  contend  that  a  nation  restricted  by  anything  but 
its  own  will  was  not  a  true  nation,  and  a  lot  of  our 
statesmen  are  echoing  this  old  outworn  cry  in 
connection  with  the  League  of  Nations.     It  was  a 
doctrine  of  sovereignty  worthy  of  a  simpler  age, 
but  not  worthy  of  our  complex  age.     Cut  all  your 
relationships  which  bind  you  to  your  fellowmen 
to-day  and  how  helpless  you  w^ould  be !    Let  even 
the  most  powerful  nation  isolate  itself  from  inter- 

282 


The  Education  of  Women 

national  relations  and  would  its  freedom,  its  great- 
ness, its  power,  be  increased  thereby?  On  the  con- 
trary in  this  day  greatness  is  in  proportion  to 
complexity  of  relationship.  Only  the  man  who  ac- 
cepts the  relationships  in  which  he  finds  himself, 
only  the  man  who  is  willing  to  enter  new  relation- 
ships of  the  greatest  variety,  can  rise  to  true  great- 
ness in  this  modern  world.  And  what  is  true  of 
man  is  true  also  of  women,  and  of  sovereign  states. 

The  miser  who  puts  his  gold  in  a  stocking  is 
more  completely  in  control  of  his  wealth  than  the 
man  who  puts  it  in  a  bank,  but  the  man  whose 
money  is  in  the  bank  is  more  powerful  than  the 
man  with  money  in  his  stocking,  because  he  can 
pay  bills  in  New  York  or  Richmond  more  easily. 
So  with  every  relationship  into  which  we  enter. 

We  need  to  preach  a  new  doctrine  of  sover- 
eignty. Sovereignty  is  not  folded  hands,  sover- 
eignty is  service.  He  that  would  be  great  among 
you,  let  him  be  servant  of  all,  is  as  true  of  states 
as  of  individuals  and  gives  to  a  college  bearing  the 
name  of  Queens,  a  new  significance.  Robinson 
Crusoe  on  his  island  was  a  sovereign  if  ever  there 
was  one,  but  who  wants  to  be  Robinson?  and  even 
if  you  did  you  could  not  turn  the  clock  backward. 
America  a  member  of  the  League  of  Nations  will 
find  fewer  obstacles  to  the  accomplishment  of 
her  purposes  than  America  isolated.  Therefore, 
America  bound  in  a  league  is  more  sovereign  in 
the  only  attribute  of  sovereignty  that  really  mat- 
ters, the  power  to  achieve  her  aim,  than  America 
outside  restricting  alliances.     This  is  a  hard  doc- 

283 


The  Education  of  Women 

trine  for  woman,  of  wliom  it  is  said  that  what  she 
chiefly  wants  is  to  have  her  own  way,  but  it  is  also 
easy  for  her  because  she  has  so  long  been  used  to 
enter  into  the  sovereignty  of  her  womanhood 
through  the  restricting  covenant  of  marriage. 

I  ask  you  young  ladies  of  Queens  to  adopt  this 
Christian  doctrine  of  sovereignty  for  the  state,  and 
then  to  re-read  your  creed,  Life  is  Wealth,  in  its 
light. 

I  think  we  all  sympathize  with  the  womanhood 
of  to-day  as  it  seizes  upon  life,  mth  new  avidity, 
with  a  new  determination  to  wring  from  it  the  last 
drop  of  both  the  bitter  and  the  sweet,  as  it  pushes 
out  to  join  her  brothers  in  the  wide  fields  of  civic 
and  political  action.  If  we  join  as  we  all  do  for 
our  young  men  in  the  prayer  of  Tennyson,  "Let 
knowledge  grow  from  more  to  more,"  we  also,  I 
am  sure,  would  acclaim  a  poet  who  would  phrase 
the  enrichment  of  human  emotion,  the  greater  joys, 
the  deeper  griefs,  the  intenser  longings,  the  more 
perfect  truth  for  which  we  look  with  confidence 
to  the  educated  woman  of  the  new  day.  But  let 
me  warn  you  not  to  make  the  mistake  of  Germany. 
There  was  a  day  when  predatory  fighting  and  im- 
perial aspirations  were  regarded  as  the  legitimate 
ideals  of  the  state.  For  the  pursuit  of  such  ideals, 
Germany  had  the  misfortune  of  being  born  too 
late. 

Man  once  knew  a  world  of  two  dimensions.  To- 
day he  knows  three  and  looks  for  a  fourth.  A 
philosophy  which  measures  life  by  distance  and 
variety  of  experience  only,  which  looks  out  over 

284 


The  Education  of  Women 

the  world  as  you  do  to-day  from  the  threshold  of 
this  school,  and  says  the  more  varied  experience 
I  have,  the  more  things  I  do,  the  more  flavors  I 
taste,  the  more  of  life  I  shall  be  having,  will  find 
herself  like  Germany,  born  too  late.  Had  Ger- 
many been  willing  to  follow  Goethe  rather  than 
Nietsche,  and  to  say  with  him,  Restriction  by  vol- 
untary choice  is  the  mark  of  the  master  spirit, 
Germany  had  been  great  to-day. 

In  a  psychological  as  well  as  in  a  theological 
sense  your  kingdom  is  within  you.  The  great  soul 
may  taste  life  in  its  fullness,  live  life  in  its  full- 
ness, find  itself  the  peer  and  congenial  friend  of 
the  master  spirits  of  life,  in  what  one  of  your  two 
dimension  philosophers  would  call  a  two  by  four 
existence.  You  cannot  very  well  avoid  sharing 
the  belief  of  your  day,  Life  is  Wealth,  and  inter- 
preted aright  it  is  a  very  wholesome  psychological 
creed,  far  better  certainly  than  the  creed  of  so 
many  Americans,  Wealth  is  Life;  but  strive  to 
pass  beyond  the  primary  grade  in  which  the  new 
woman  tarries  with  her  naive  valuation  of  every- 
thing that  is,  because  it  is,  and  to  enter  those 
higher  grades  of  life's  school,  where  pupils  have 
the  time  and  the  initiative  to  appraise  lights  and 
shadows,  to  think  more  of  quality  and  less  of  quan- 
tity, to  accept  restrictions  and  limitations  because 
they  help  you  to  self-mastery  and  to  the  attain- 
ment of  that  perfection  without  which  life  turns 
stale  and  meaningless. 

"Forenoon  and  afternoon  and  night — Forenoon, 
And  afternoon  and  night — 
285 


The  Education  of  Women 

Forenoon  and — what ! 
The  empty  song  repeats  itself,  no  more? 
Yea  that  is  Life,  make  this  forenoon  sublime, 
This  afternoon  a  psalm,  this  night  a  prayer. 
And  Time  is  conquered,  and  \hy  crown  is  won." 

And  above  all  do  not  dwell  so  much  in  the  din 
of  the  world  that  you  will  have  no  share  in  that 
life  of  the  spirit  which  properly  nourished  comes 
to  fruition  as  the  life  of  sense  and  of  emotion  and 
of  ambition  fail. 

''Very  early,"  says  Margaret  Puller,  "I  per- 
ceived that  the  object  of  life  is  to  grow. ' '  Growth 
doubtless  has  been  more  or  less  in  your  thoughts 
these  last  recent  years  because  of  your  physical 
growth.  Perhaps  you  have  said  to  yourselves,  I 
am  now  grown  up,  and  have  dismissed  the  idea  of 
grow^th  from  your  mind.  If  so  remember  growth 
has  only  begun.  If  a  piece  of  land  has  been 
burned  over,  nature  has  a  way  of  covering  it 
quickly  mth  blackberry  briars,  then  with  poplars 
or  birches  or  maples,  but  all  the  time  underneath, 
the  slow  growing  pine  is  germinating  and  growling 
steadily,  ready  to  take  its  place  and  stand  when 
the  others  are  over  and  gone.  So  mth  the  human 
soul,  sheltered  first  under  the  physical  growth, 
emerging  slowly  in  the  shadow  of  the  more  quickly 
growing  intellectual  life,  comes  the  slow  growing 
spiritual  life,  if  not  trampled  upon  or  uprooted. 
In  the  turmoil  of  life's  excitements,  upon  which 
you  are  about  to  enter,  if  at  any  time  you  should 
be  tempted  to  look  for  something  more  beautiful, 
more   gratifying   than    anything  you   may   have 

286^ 


The  Education  of  Women 

found  in  the  wide  travels  of  experience,  don't  for- 
get when  you  have  looked  everywhere  else,  to  look 
within,  and  then  may  you  have  the  poet's  experi- 
ence: 

"To   feel   a  poem  in  your  heart  to-day  a  still  thing 

growing 
As  if  the  darkness  to  the  outer  light  a  song  were  owing, 
A  something  strangely  vague  and  sweet  and  sad, 
Fair,  fragile,  slender, 
Not  tearful,  yet  not  daring  to  be  glad. 
And  oh  so  tender 

It  may  not  reach  the  outer  world  at  all 
Despite  its  growing; 
Upon  a  poem  bud  such  cold  winds  fall 
To  blight  its  blooming, 
But,  oh,  whatever  may  the  thing  betide, 
Free  life  or  fetter, 

My  heart,  just  to  have  held  it  till  it  died 
Will  be  the  better." 

I  wish  for  you  graduates  of  Queens  not  only 
life  in  its  fullness,  but  life  at  its  best.  I  wish  for 
you  that  true  culture,  that  true  womanly  experi- 
ence so  well  described  by  Van  Dyke  as  ''The  Light 
of  seeing  things  clearly  and  truly.  The  sweet- 
ness of  imaginative  vision  by  which  we  behold 
things  old  and  new,  and  enter  into  other  hearts 
and  lives.  The  joy  of  free  and  sane  thinking  for 
ourselves,  and  above  all,  the  power  of  resolutely 
choosing  out  of  all  that  knowledge  and  experience 
bring  the  best,  to  love,  admire  and  follow." 


287 


BROADER  EDUCATION  OF  ENGINEERS 

IT  is  a  great  pleasure  to  me  to  be  present  this 
evening,  and  to  see  this  large  body  of  engi- 
neers gathered  in  the  interests  of  the  School  of  Ap- 
plied Science. 

When  I  entered  college  at  Washington  Square, 
the  School  of  Engineering  was  a  room,  a  professor 
and  an  assistant.  Before  I  became  a  sophomore, 
they  had  added  to  this  School  an  associate  pro- 
fessor; and  ever  since,  during  the  twenty-two 
years  which  have  elapsed,  I  have  been  interested 
in  the  successive  expansions  of  the  School  and  of 
the  man  who  then  became  associated  with  it  and 
who  is  now  our  honored  Dean,  to  whose  devoted 
service  we  owe  so  much  of  what  the  School  has 
been  able  to  accomplish. 

Some  time  ago  I  met  a  man  who  employs  a 
large  number  of  engineers  in  his  office,  taking  them 
from  a  half  dozen  engineering  schools;  and  he 
said  that,  on  the  whole,  the  men  of  the  School  of 
Applied  Science  had  given  him  better  satisfaction 
than  the  men  of  any  other  school.  I  am  glad  that 
our  training  in  engineering  produces  good  men, 
because  I  have  been  especially  struck  recently  by 
the  expanding  horizon  of  engineering  as  a  profes- 
sion, and  by  the  demands  which  other  professions 

Address   before  the  alumni   of   the   School   of   Applied   Science, 
New  York  University,  1912. 

288 


Broader  Education  of  Engineers 

are  coming  to  make  upon  it.  We  are  somewhat 
puzzled  to  know,  for  example,  whether  the  new 
profession  of  Public  Health  Officer — the  advance 
agent  of  that  preventive  medicine  whose  business 
it  will  be  to  keep  people  well  instead  of  curing  them 
when  sick — should  find  its  roots  in  engineering  and 
belong  with  water  supply  and  drainage,  or  whether 
it  should  find  its  roots  in  medicine  and  begin  with 
cadavers  and  calomel;  or  whether  the  sanitary 
expert  and  public  health  officer  should  be  propa- 
gated in  the  common  garden  of  the  microbe  and 
then  transplanted  to  their  respective  professional 
schools.  The  Massachusetts  Institute  of  Tech- 
nology thinks  that  the  public  health  belongs  to 
them,  while  Harvard  conceives  it  as  a  post-grad- 
uate function  of  the  medical  school. 

Recently  we  have  heard  that  only  an  engineer 
is  competent  to  say  when  a  transfer  is  not  a  trans- 
fer, and  when  a  strap  will  serve  as  a  seat ;  though 
the  claim  seems  to  have  fallen  on  barren  ground, 
and  it  has  been  shown  that  the  less  one  knows 
about  municipal  ownership  or  engineering  the 
better  qualified  one  is  to  care  for  public  transpor- 
tation. It  is  a  hopeful  sign,  however,  as  showing 
ambition  on  the  part  of  engineers  to  enlarge  their 
part  in  the  public  service. 

In  connection  with  the  subject  of  city  planning, 
upon  which  I  have  been  conducting  a  research 
course  this  winter,  I  have  been  interested  to  note 
the  claim  of  an  engineer,  that  because  the  problem 
of  city  planning  is  a  problem  of  motion,  not  of 
static  conditions,  it  is  a  problem  for  the  engineer 

289 


Broader  Education  of  Engineers 

rather  than  for  the  architect;  and  this  view  has 
been  borne  out  by  the  fact  that  of  the  score  or 
more  of  plans  which  have  been  provided  by  ex- 
perts for  cities  of  the  United  States,  perhaps  the 
most  far-reaching  and  thorough,  and  the  one  pre- 
pared witli  the  least  delay,  was  the  plan  of  the 
City  of  Seattle,  and  that  plan  was  prepared  by  a 
city  engineer.  And  yet  the  engineers  took  no 
part  in  the  original  organization  of  the  City 
Planning  Conferences;  and  as  Professor  Swain, 
Professor  of  Civil  Engineering  at  Harvard  Uni- 
versity and  himself  a  member  of  the  Boston  Tran- 
sit Commission,  said  at  the  last  conference:  "Not- 
■withstanding  the  prominence  of  engineering  prob- 
lems among  those  which  city  planning  has  to  solve, 
the  engineer  has  not  as  yet  become  sufficiently 
identified  mth  the  movement  or  the  organization. ' ' 
It  is  interesting  to  note,  however,  that  ten  engi- 
neers have  now  been  associated  with  the  general 
committee,  of  whom  New  York  furnishes  five. 
When  this  winter  the  Fifth  Avenue  Association 
wanted  to  form  a  committee  of  expert  advisers, 
^we  had  much  greater  difficulty  in  naming  engineers 
of  national  reputation  Avho  had  manifested  any 
interest  in  the  larger  civic  problems,  than  in  nam- 
ing architects  ^^dth  such  qualifications. 

Take  this  matter  of  city  planning,  as  a  matter 
now  very  prominently  before  the  public, — it  deals 
primarily  with  land,  the  same  material  with  which 
the  civil  engineer  deals.  And  yet,  what  is  the  con- 
tribution which  the  engineers  of  this  city  are 
making  toward  a  revision  of  our  notion  of  the 

290 


Broader  Education  of  Engineers 

rights  of  private  ownership  in  land  with  a  view 
to  the  city's  highest  welfare?  How  many  engi- 
neers have  said  a  word  for  the  Excess  Condemna- 
tion Bill,  now  before  our  Legislature  the  second 
time,  without  which  new  streets  in  the  crowded 
parts  of  the  city  are  a  practical  impossibility? 
We  know  that  Mr.  Lewis  and  Mr.  Tuttle  have 
been  leaders  in  the  matter,  but  have  they  been 
backed  up  by  a  profession  with  large  views  of 
civic  life  and  civic  responsibility?  Is  the  profes- 
sion so  organized  that  it  can  make  sure  that  the 
responsible  posts  in  our  city  engineering  depart- 
ments are  filled  by  competent  men?  And  when 
a  good  man  is  secured,  are  they  protecting  him 
and  his  profession  against  the  insidious  encroach- 
ments of  the  Comptroller's  office — the  misguided 
effort  for  efficiency,  and  against  politicians  seek- 
ing spoils?  Do  you  think  the  chief  engineer  of 
a  city  borough  ought  to  be  a  man  honest  enough 
to  say  how  many  drawing  tables  he  needs,  without 
having  his  statement  questioned  and  a  separate 
investigation  made  by  the  Comptroller's  office? 
What  is  your  view  of  a  city  government  which 
tests  the  work  done  by  an  engineer  entrusted  with 
the  designing  and  layout  of  great  boulevards,  by 
checking  up  the  miles  of  maps  made  by  him  with 
the  number  of  miles  made  by  his  predecessor  in 
a  given  number  of  days,  and  which  tells  him  to 
"speed  up,"  because  the  mileage  is  less  per  day 
and  per  hour?  What  do  you  think  of  a  city  which 
turns  over  the  designing  of  a  great  boulevard 
to  a  young  man  who  does  not  even  know  where 

291 


Broader  Education  of  Engineers 

the  Champs-Elysees  is,  and  has  only  a  hazy  recol- 
lection of  having  lieard  of  Unter  den  Linden? 

I  believe  in  enlarging  the  sphere  of  the  engi- 
neering profession.  There  is  something  in  the 
drill  of  an  engineering  education,  just  as  there  is 
in  the  drill  of  a  West  Point  education,  which  fits 
a  man  to  do  great  tasks  well.  The  mathematics 
of  the  engineer  has  immediate  application  and  is 
tested  by  experience.  Accuracy  is  vital;  inaccu- 
racy fraught  with  grave  consequences.  The  infin- 
ite detail  of  the  engineer's  work  teaches  patience 
and  persistence.  And  these  three  qualities — ac- 
curacy, patience  and  persistence — will  carry  a  man 
far.  If  to  these  we  add  a  constructive  imagina- 
tion, without  which  no  great  engineering  feats 
are  accomplished,  we  shall  have  men  well  quali- 
fied for  public  service  of  wide  range.  It  was  an 
act  of  deep  significance,  and  a  high  compliment 
to  the  engineering  profession,  when  the  erection 
of  our  new  Municipal  Building  was  placed  under 
the  supervision  of  our  Department  of  Bridges. 

The  broader  the  sphere  of  the  profession,  how- 
ever, the  more  necessary  that  w^e  see  to  it  that  the 
engineer  be  broadly  trained.  As  the  Dean  has 
often  said — it  is  as  important  that  an  engineer 
know  men  as  that  he  know  materials.  It  is  im- 
portant that  he  know  something  of  economics,  of 
theories  of  land  tax,  of  unearned  increment,  and 
of  the  taxation  of  improvements,  if  we  are  to 
consult  with  him  on  the  tenure  of  land; — that  he 
study  the  housing  problem  and  the  science  of  city 
planning,  the  relation  of  factories  to  labor  mar- 

292 


Broader  Education  of  Engineers 

kets,  if  he  is  to  represent  us  in  our  Public  Serv- 
ice Commission ;  that  he  know  the  history  of  trade 
and  commerce,  if  he  is  to  plan  our  docks,  build 
our  bridges,  and  dredge  our  rivers ;  that  he  know 
something  of  what  the  new  English  Town  Plan- 
ning Law  calls  amenity,  which  in  England  has  as- 
sumed sufficient  definiteness  to  be  made  a  legal 
concept,  so  that  he  will  not  put  one  gas  tank  be- 
side Grant's  Tomb  on  the  Hudson  Kiver,  and 
outdo  it  with  a  larger  one  between  Webb's  Acad- 
emy and  New  York  University  on  the  Harlem 
River. 

It  is  quite  as  important  that  the  engineer  should 
be  in  touch  with  the  best  thought  and  aspiration 
of  his  day,  as  it  is  that  our  Court  of  Appeals 
should  keep  its  library  of  economic  and  sociologi- 
cal books  up  to  date.  And  toward  this  ideal  there 
is  great  opportunity  for  our  School  of  Applied 
Science  to  contribute.  Our  great  corporations 
are  beginning  to  look  toward  the  universities  for 
help.  The  president  of  the  United  Electric  Light 
&  Power  Company  is  proud  to  refer  to  the  fact, 
that  in  building  the  power  plant  on  the  Harlem, 
they  have  availed  themselves  of  the  advice  of  ex- 
perts from  the  Massachusetts  Institute  of  Tech- 
nology, from  Sheffield  and  other  scientific  schools, 
on  questions  of  smoke,  stoking  and  water  cur- 
tains. And  if  we  can  find  the  necessary  endow- 
ment to  insure  a  reasonable  livelihood,  we  may 
be  sure  that  there  will  be  none  who  will  do  more 
for  the  profession  and  the  public  welfare  than  the 
expert  professors  of  New  York  University,  kept 

293 


Broader  Education  of  Engineers 

in  touch  Avith  stern  reality  hv  the  terrific  life  of 
this  metropolis,  in  touch  with  the  humanities  by 
the  students  and  professors  of  Liberal  Arts — 
with  whom  they  share  a  common  campus,  and 
with  art  and  amenity  by  the  beauty  of  site  and 
buildings,  to  which  we  trust  Engineering  will  soon 
make  its  own  appropriate  contribution. 


294 


EDUCATIONAL  RESEARCH 

IT  is  a  great  pleasure  to  me  to  be  present  at 
this  luncheon  of  the  Doctors  of  Pedagogy,  to 
recall  to  you  the  objects  for  which  the  School  was 
organized,  to  review  its  work  and  to  consult  re- 
garding the  future.     Although  not  an  alumnus  of 
this  School,  I  feel  a  strong  personal  attachment 
to  it.     The  School  of  Pedagogy  began  its  work 
in  the  university  as  a  fully  organized  professional 
school  at  the  same  time  that  I  began  my  work  as 
a  freshman,  both  entering  the  university  circle 
in  the  fall  of  1890  in  the  old  building  at  Wash- 
ington Square.     The  undergraduate  of  those  days, 
it  is  true,  was  not  brought  into  close  touch  with 
the  work  of  the  School  of  Pedagogy  and  there 
was  no  provision  such  as  exists  to-day  by  which 
seniors  looking  forward  to  the  profession  of  teach- 
ing could  take  work  in  the  School  of  Pedagogy.     It 
was  our  good  fortune,  however,  as  juniors  and 
seniors   to  profit   indirectly   from  the   establish- 
ment of  the  School  and  I  still  recall  with  peculiar 
pleasure  the  hours  spent  in  the   study  of  logic 
with  the  first  Dean  of  the   School,  Dr.   Jerome 
Allen,  and  hours  in  rhetoricals  with  that  other 
great  teacher  who  followed  Dr.  Allen  as  Dean, 
Dr.  Edward  R.  Shaw.     If  I  add  to  this  knowledare 


Address  before  the   Society  of  the  Doctors   of  Pedagogy,  New 
York  City,   1911. 

295 


Educational  Research 

as  a  scholar  of  two  members  of  the  original  fa- 
culty, my  acquaiiitiuice  with  Dr.  Shimer,  who  was 
the  third  member  of  the  original  faculty  dating 
from  almost  the  same  time,  you  will  admit  that  I 
am  justified  in  regarding  the  School  of  Pedagogy 
as  a  contemporary  and  an  old  friend. 

A  recent  writer  in  the  '* Educational  Review," 
under  the  title  "The  Temptations  of  a  College 
President,"  gives  tliis  interesting  cross  section  of 
the  daily  mail  of  a  college  executive:  "inquiries 
from  candidates  for  the  freshman  class  with  many 
intellectual  and  financial  weaknesses  about  Avhich 
advice  was  needed ;  from  candidates  for  places  on 
the  faculty  to  fill  vacancies  existing  or  hoped  for ; 
from  an  uneasy  professor  of  another  college  wiio 
inclosed  a  blank,  which  he  said  he  had  sent  to 
five  hundred  others  asking  for  information  as  to 
the  best  place  to  purchase  frying-pans  for  the  col- 
lege refectory  and  the  number,  shape,  and  size  in 
millimeters  of  those  most  needed;  from  the  best 
lecturer  in  America  who  would  for  ten  dollars 
give  his  unrivaled  effort  on  'The  Psychology  of 
the  Forward  Pass';  from  a  lady  who  desired  his 
name  as  honorary  vice-president  of  an  association 
to  supply  anti-bacterial  bacteria  to  the  children  of 
immigrants ;  and  from  a  miscellaneous  assortment 
of  seekers  of  detailed  advice  on  subjects  unin- 
teresting to  himself  or  any  one  else  but  the 
w^riter, ' ' 

We  all  recognize  it  as  true  picture.  There  is, 
however,  another  side  to  it.  As  all  of  us  find  the 
morning  newspaper  of  perpetual  interest  as  a 

296 


Educational  Research 

cross  section  of  the  world's  doings,  so  the  maii  ot 
a  college  office  retains  perpetual  interest  because 
it  is  a  cross  section  of  what  the  world  is  think- 
ing. If  we  take  it  altogether — publishers'  an- 
nouncements of  new  books,  invitations  to  in- 
numerable banquets  with  the  topics  assigned  to  a 
great  array  of  speakers,  letters  of  cranks  with 
here  and  there  an  occasional  genius,  scholarly 
monographs  of  the  new  generation  of  college 
teachers,  reports  of  conventions,  newspaper  clip- 
pings of  a  thousand  and  one  things  of  supposed  in- 
terest, the  speech  of  a  Congressman,  the  plea  of  a 
candidate  for  city  office,  a  pamphlet  on  peace,  a 
pamphlet  on  woman's  suffrage,  a  pamphlet  on 
conservation,  a  pamphlet  on  the  education  of  the 
negro,  a  pamphlet  an  rapid  transit,  a  pamphlet  on 
deep  waterways,  a  new  governmental  map  of 
Saskatchewan,  a  bulletin  on'  schools  in  the  Philip- 
pines— while  we  may  not  have  time  to  give  any 
careful  examination  to  the  rapidly  dissolving 
view,  we  find  a  perpetual  interest  in  observing 
the  ever  changing  kaleidoscope  of  human  thought, 
and  the  thoughtful  observer  will  detect  here  and 
there  an  idea  or  a  creed  which  promises  to  furnish 
events  for  the  newspaper  of  ten  years  hence. 

The  same  mail  which  brought  a  request  from 
your  secretary  to  name  a  subject  for  my  remarks 
to-day,  brought  a  card  which  was  in  many  re- 
spects unique  and  which  doubtless  many  of  you 
have  seen,  setting  forth  that  John  Peter  Huf- 
nagel,  born  in  St.  Louis,  Mo.,  1867,  was  a  Repub- 
lican candidate  for  the  office  of  United  States  Sen- 

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Educational  Research 

ator  for  Missouri  on  the  platform  of  a  national 
certificate  for  teachers  and  a  national  diploma  for 
graduates.  It  struck  me  as  remarkable  that  the 
status  of  the  teacher  should  be  a  question  of  para- 
mount importance  in  the  election  of  a  United 
States  Senator,  and  it  struck  me  as  still  more  re- 
markable that  it  should  be  a  question  of  para- 
mount importance  in  Missouri,  where,  ten  years 
ago,  I  used  to  attend  teachers'  conventions  and 
talk  in  percentages  of  illiteracy  and  where  stu- 
dents of  our  preparatory  department  frankly  ad- 
mitted that  they  were  studying  algebra  so  as  to 
keep  at  least  a  week  ahead  of  the  class  which  they 
were  teaching  in  the  pubhc  school. 

The  same  mail  brought  me  a  newspaper  from 
Buenos  Ayres,  South  America,  w^hich  had  an  illus- 
tration showing  one  of  our  university  instructors 
addressing  a  large  audience  on  commercial  educa- 
tion in  the  United  States. 

At  the  same  time,  there  came  to  me  from  my 
mother  an  account  of  her  visit  to  a  public  school 
held  in  an  old  Buddhist  temple  at  Karuizawa,  Ja- 
pan, with  a  photograph  by  herself  of  a  hundred 
of  the  bright,  intelligent  Japanese  faces  and  an 
account  of  the  difficulty  she  had  had  in  making  the 
Japanese  teacher  understand  the  significance  of 
the  word  ''breeze"  in  the  line  of  America  ''Let 
music  swell  the  breeze."  From  my  mother's  de- 
scription, I  judge  that  what  impressed  her  most 
in  this  elementary  school  was  the  fact  that  the 
children  held  their  heads  up  when  they  read,  hold- 
ing the  books  by  the  lower  comers,  and  that  there 

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Educational  Research 

was  not  a  single  dog-eared  book  in  the  school. 
The  accounts  which  I  have  received  since  of  their 
visits  to  the  great  technical  school  at  Port  Arthur 
and  to  many  other  colleges  and  schools,  and  the 
Japanese  and  Chinese  papers  printed  in  English 
and  the  Y.  M.  C.  A.  bills  announcing  the  Chan- 
cellor's addresses  half  in  English  and  half  in 
Chinese,  have  all  helped  to  make  me  realize  as  I 
have  not  realized  before,  how  in  the  education  of 
their  children,  the  world  has  a  common  interest 
which  is  universal  as  perhaps  no  other  interest 
is  universal.  I  heard  this  summer  that  a  man  of 
large  wealth  had  declared  that  he  felt  that  one  of 
the  things  that  would  be  best  worth  while  would 
be  an  international  investigation  of  school  sys- 
tems and  a  promulgation  for  the  benefit  of  all 
nations  of  any  improvement  in  method  or  peda- 
gogical fact  discovered  in  one  country.  It  was 
the  feeling  of  his  keen  mind  that  there  was  waste 
of  human  energy  in  putting  professors  in  Ger- 
many to  solve  educational  problems  for  the  Ger- 
man people  and  professors  in  America  to  solve 
educational  problems  for  the  American  people 
without  provision  for  some  systematic  exchange 
of  results.  "We  shall  doubtless  see  some  time  soon 
a  world  conference  on  education.  The  educational 
horizon  is  broadening.  "When  I  was  in  Missouri, 
they  were  striving  to  convince  the  independent 
school  districts  and  the  county  managements  that 
state  requirements  and  supervision  of  a  state 
superintendent  were  not  an  abridgement  of  the 
freedom  of  the  American  citizen.     They  were  try- 

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Educational  Research 

ing  to  widen  the  horizon  from  the  local  school  dis- 
trict to  the  width  of  the  county  and  the  state, 
and  they  met,  I  can  assure  you,  with  a  great  deal 
of  opposition  in  those  good  old  Bourbon  counties. 
Ten  years  later  the  candidate  for  United  States 
Senator  appeals  for  the  suffrage  of  the  people 
of  Missouri  on  a  platform  which  declares  the  state 
horizon  too  narrow  a  horizon  for  the  educational 
world. 

The  importance  of  a  wide  horizon  in  education 
has  been  realized  by  the  School  of  Pedagogy  from 
the  beginning.  While  the  course  of  study  for  the 
year  1891  stopped  short  with  a  critical  examina- 
tion of  national,  state,  county,  city  and  district 
systems,  the  course  of  study  for  1892-3  added  a 
course  on  the  school  systems  of  Europe  and  Amer- 
ica. The  horizon  is  broadening  when  the  Secre- 
tary of  the  Interior  acts  favorably  on  the  request 
for  an  appropriation  of  $75,000  for  national  re- 
search in  education.  The  horizon  is  broadening 
w^hen  the  desire  to  know  takes  such  a  strong  hold 
of  the  Board  of  Estimate  of  this  city  of  New 
York  that  it  is  willing  to  spend  $50,000  for  a 
single  course  of  study  of  the  local  school  system. 
If  there  is  any  one  here  who  has  found  in  the 
smaller  number  of  students  in  the  School  of  Peda- 
gogy a  reason  for  beheving  that  the  work  of  the 
School  has  been  accomplished  and  that  the  neces- 
sity which  brought  it  into  existence  no  longer 
exists,  that  one  is  as  far  astray  in  his  judg-ment 
of  the  field  of  knowledge  as  one  would  be  who 
should  argue  that  the  microscope  being  so  small 

300 


Educational  Research 

as  compared  with,  the  telescope,  the  knowledge 
to  which  it  gives  access  must  be  correspondingly 
unimportant.  It  is  a  day  of  monoplanes  and  bi- 
planes, of  Antoinettes  and  Zeppelins.  That  an 
island  is  a  body  of  land  surrounded  by  water  is 
becoming  of  less  geographical  importance  than 
that  skyscrapers  discharge  strong  currents  of  air 
heavenward.  The  imaginary  birdseye  view  has 
become  a  reality.  The  university,  as  well  as  the 
individual,  must  be  up  and  doing  would  it  keep 
abreast  of  truth. 

I  nominate  to  you  to-day,  therefore,  the  School 
of  Pedagogy  as  an  efficient  agent  for  a  broader 
study  of  education  than  the  world  has  yet  under- 
taken. On  the  platform  of  mankind's  common 
interest  in  the  education  of  its  children,  I  nomi- 
nate to  you  a  national  school  of  pedagogy  with 
an  international  vision  as  a  powerful  factor  in 
the  world's  unity  and  peace.  I  ask  you  to  con- 
sider if  it  costs  the  city  of  New  York  $50,000 
to  learn  the  truth  about  its  own  school  system, 
what  sums  might  profitably  be  employed  by 
such  a  national  school  of  pedagogy  in  the  inves- 
tigation and  comparison  of  the  systems  of  the 
world.  I  ask  you  to  consider  what  sum  might  suit- 
ably be  employed  in  a  world  conference  on  educa- 
tion if  the  preliminary  fund  for  a  world  confer- 
ence on  Christian  unity  is  given  a  hundred  thou- 
sand dollars  as  a  start.  It  is  a  day  of  large  things. 
It  is  a  day  of  national  interchange  of  professors. 
It  is  a  day  of  pilgrimages  of  students  from  coun- 
try to  country,  a  day  when  the  reformer  from  In- 

30  X 


Educational  Research 

dia  studies  in  America  to  prepare  for  the  over- 
throw of  English  rule,  when  the  Japanese  studies 
in  America  to  be  tlie  better  equipped  for  controlling 
Kussia  and  runs  typewriters  in  Tokio  and  automo- 
biles in  Manchuria.  When  I  was  in  Cripple  Creek, 
Colorado,  1  saw  the  same  new  novels  and  the  same 
weekly  publications  on  sale  at  the  stationer's  store 
that  I  had  seen  in  New  York.  When  I  was  in 
Vancouver  on  the  Pacific  and  in  Halifax  on  the 
Atlantic,  I  found  a  paper  published  in  Philadel- 
phia placed  on  sale  on  the  same  day  on  which  it 
was  placed  on  sale  in  New  York.  It  is  a  day  when 
a  thing  worth  reading  by  one  English  speaking 
person  is  worth  reading,  and  can  be  read, 
b}-^  a  hundred  million  English  speaking  persons. 
There  never  was  a  time  when  research  was  bet- 
ter worth  while  or  when  truth  found  a  larger  audi- 
ence. Is  not  the  time  ripe,  therefore,  to  take 
a  broader  view  of  the  work  of  the  School  of  Peda- 
gogy, to  remember  that  the  miscroscope  holds 
sway  in  the  world  of  science  to-day  and  that  in- 
vestigations to  be  valuable  must  be  minute  and 
exact,  that  it  is  worth  while  to  measure  by  the 
millimeter  w^hen  the  results  are  for  the  millions 
and  at  the  same  time  to  remember  that  this  age 
of  the/  miscroscope  is  also  the  age  of  the  airship 
which  knows  no  geographical  boundaries  and 
which  has  added  a  third  dimension  to  the  lines  of 
travel?  I  for  one  am  anxious  to  see  the  School 
of  Pedagogy  enter  this  larger  field.  I  want  en- 
dowments which  will  make  it  possible  for  men  to 
give  their  w^hole  time  to  knowing  our  American 

302 


Educational  Research 

school  systems  as  they  exist  to-day,  so  that  New 
York  may  boast  a  man  of  encyclopedic  knowledge 
and  a  recognized  international  authority  on  all 
questions  of  fact  relating  to  American  school  sys- 
tems. I  want  endowments  so  that  the  School  of 
Pedagogy  may  have  a  professor  who  will  be  as 
familiar  with  the  details  of  the  New  York  pub- 
lic school  system  and  the  personnel  of  its  teach- 
ing force  as  our  professor  of  chemistry  is  with  the 
contents  of  his  laboratory.  I  want  endowments 
for  travehng  fellowships  which  shall  make  it  pos- 
sible to  bring  back  to  the  students  of  the  School  of 
Pedagogy  first  hand  knowledge  of  foreign  school 
systems.  I  want  endowments  for  visiting  lecture- 
ships so  that  students  of  the  School  of  Pedagogy 
may  study  foreign  school  systems  not  only  through 
American  eyes  but  from  the  lips  of  those  officials 
of  Japan,  China  or  India,  as  the  case  may  be,  best 
qualified  to  speak.  I  want  fellowships  for  for- 
eigners so  that  the  teacher  from  Germany,  India 
and  Japan  may  study  in  the  same  class  with  the 
teacher  in  America  and  so  create  among  Ameri- 
cans an  interest  in  things  foreign  and  a  cosmo- 
politan point  of  view  such  as  springs  only  from 
the  interest  which  centers  around  a  personality. 
Perhaps  you  will  think  these  presumptuous 
dreams  for  a  poor  institution  like  ours,  but  I  have 
always  held  with  Plato  as  against  Aristotle,  that 
the  small  things  of  to-day  are  real  in  what  they 
borrow  from  great  ideals  rather  than  that  great 
ideals  are  real  in  proportion  as  they  are  common 
to   the   things   of   to-day.    The  University  was 

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Educational  Research 

founded  in  an  atmosphere  of  great  ideas  and  it  is 
always  refreshing  when  the  endless  round  of  de- 
tail becomes  overwhelming,  to  get  back  into  the 
atmosphere  of  those  early  educational  discus- 
sions. I  trust,  therefore,  that  when  you  look  in 
on  the  School  of  Pedagogy,  while  you  may  find  it 
using  its  microscope  with  care  and  precision  in 
the  discovery  of  exact  truth  in  its  own  domain, 
you  wall  also  find  that  the  telescope  has  not  been 
laid  aside  but  that  with  its  own  present  small 
share  in  scientific  investigation  go  larger  dreams 
and  visions  of  the  time  when  the  School  shall  be 
not  local  but  national  and  its  knowledge  and  its 
helpfulness  worldwide. 


304 


EDUCATION  FOR  BUSINESS 

ARCHBISHOP  CHICELE,  who  founded  All 
Souls'  College  at  Oxford,  made  it  a  condi- 
tion of  Ms  gift  that  the  Fellows  of  the  College 
should  forever  care  for  his  tomb  at  Canterbury 
Cathedral.  He  died  before  the  discovery  of  Amer- 
ica and  no  tomb  is  more  likely  to  receive  perennial 
care,  in  the  future  as  in  the  past,  than  the  tomb  of 
the  w^ise  ecclesiastic  who  rested  his  faith  in  the 
permanency  of  a  school.  Mr.  Haskins  left  the 
school,  of  which  he  was  one  of  the  principal 
founders,  no  building  and  no  endowment,  nor  is 
the  school  bound  by  any  deed  of  gift  to  cherish 
his  memory.  His  bequest  to  the  School  of  Com- 
merce, Accounts  and  Finance  was  an  idea,  and  be- 
cause this  idea  has  proved  potent  and  fruitful 
beyond  the  most  sanguine  expectations,  the  stu- 
dents and  friends  of  the  School  turn  naturally  to 
perpetuate  his  memory.  The  university  authori- 
ties gladly  accept  the  custody  of  this  memorial, 
and  wish  me  to  express  to  those  who  have  been 
instrumental  in  establishing  it,  their  hearty  ap- 
preciation of  the  thoughtfulness  and  generosity 
which  have  inscribed  here  the  name  of  the  first 
Dean,  for  coming  generations  of  students  to  read 


Address  at  memorial  services  of  Charles  Waldo  Haskins,  Dean 
of  the  School  of  Commerce,  New  York  University,  1910. 


Education  for  Business 

and  rovoro.  We  trust  that  the  bronze  tablet  un- 
veiled this  evening  will  outlive  the  building  in 
which  it  finds  a  temporary  home,  and  have  an 
honored  place  in  the  statelier  halls  which  the  gen- 
erations will  bring. 

It  has  been  said  that  the  first  rule  for  success  is 
to  select  the  right  grandfather.  If  you  students 
and  alumni  of  the  School  of  Commerce  have  shown 
wisdom  in  selecting  this  School  as  your  fostering 
mother,  you  may  congratulate  yourselves  also  that 
this  fostering  mother  was  the  child  of  a  man  so 
clear  in  vision  and  so  strong  in  faith  as  Mr.  Has- 
kins.  It  was  never  my  good  fortune,  like  the  other 
speakers  of  the  evening,  to  know  Mr.  Haskins  per- 
sonally. At  the  time  the  School  was  founded  I 
was  in  the  West,  enjoying  the  wide  perspective  of 
the  Missouri  prairies.  I  recall,  however,  that 
when  I  joined  my  father  in  the  Catskills  in  the 
summer  of  1900,  he  outlined  to  me  the  plan  of  the 
School  and  we  discussed  together  the  name 
*' Commerce,  Accounts  and  Finance."  For  ten 
years,  therefore,  the  name  of  Mr.  Haskins  has 
stood  to  my  mind  for  an  idea  rather  than  for  a 
personality;  and  as  it  is  the  idea  as  well  as  the 
man  that  w^e  celebrate  to-night,  I  leave  to  others 
the  pleasant  task  of  speaking  of  Mr.  Haskins  as  a 
friend,  and  mil  say  a  brief  word  only  regarding 
the  idea  for  which  his  name  stands. 

I  was  struck  by  the  fact  in  that  early  conversa- 
tion mth  the  Chancellor,  that  Mr.  Haskins  and 
his  associates  who  proposed  the  organization  of 
the  new  school  were  men  more  interested  in  sub- 

306 


Education  for  Business 

stance  than  form.  They  did  not  begin  with  a 
name  and  then  decide  what  the  School  was  to  do, 
but  began  with  a  concrete  task  and  permitted  the 
organization  to  assume  a  form  adapted  to  the  task. 
As  I  understand  it,  those  who  proposed  the  or- 
ganization of  the  School  wanted  first  of  all  the 
help  of  an  educational  institution  in  creating  and 
maintaining  a  new  profession — the  profession  of 
Certified  Public  Accountant;  and  secondly,  they 
wanted  instruction  which  should  widen  the  out- 
look of  young  business  men,  enrich  their  lives  and 
fit  them  for  the  wider  opportunities  which  modern 
industrial  organization  affords.  I  recall  that  the 
Chancellor  said  more  than  once  that  this  School 
differed  from  all  other  university  schools  of  busi- 
ness in  that  it  had  ''as  its  backbone,"  as  he  ex- 
pressed it,  the  task  of  preparing  men  for  a  defin- 
ite profession,  the  profession  of  the  accountant. 
Mr.  Haskins  saw  ten  years  ago  what  the  rest  of 
the  world  has  come  to  see  more  clearly  since,  that 
the  intricacies  of  modern  corporate  organizations 
and  the  multiplying  of  governmental  activities 
were  destined  to  create  a  new  profession  or  give  a 
new  significance  to  one  already  existing  in  a 
minor  way.  Mr,  Haskins  probably  did  not  fore- 
see, nor  could  any  one  have  foreseen  at  the  time, 
the  sudden  growth  of  the  demand  on  the  part  of 
the  public  for  publicity  of  corporate  affairs.  He 
would  have  been  an  extraordinary  prophet  who 
could  have  predicted  that  this  appetite,  whetted 
by  the  gas  and  insurance  investigations,  would 
have  become  so  insatiate  in  so  short  a  time. 

307 


Education  for  Business 

Just  as  the  great  corporations  have  created  a 
new  field  for  lawyers,  giving  them  an  opportunity 
to  apply  their  trained  brains  to  laiotty  business 
questions  and  to  show  business  men  how  the  thing 
can  be  done  which  they  want  done,  so  the  crea- 
tion of  great  corporations  has  created  a  new  field 
for  the  man  with  expert  financial  knowledge,  in 
interpreting  to  oAvners  and  stockholders  and  the 
public  at  large  what  it  is  that  the  corporation  has 
done  in  carrjdng  out  the  wishes  of  the  business 
man  in  the  way  suggested  by  the  lawyer,  and 
what  the  result  is  in  dollars  and  cents.  Account- 
ing, as  Mr.  Haskins  expressed  it,  is  the  conning 
tower  of  modem  business. 

I  am  not  gifted  with  prophetic  insight  and  can- 
not foresee  the  future  development  of  this  pro- 
fession. From  my  own  experience,  however,  with 
the  work  of  certified  public  accountants  in  the  cor- 
porations with  which  I  am  connected,  I  see  clearly 
one  thing — that  the  future  of  the  profession  will 
depend  on  the  intellectual  power  and  breadth  of 
the  men  who  compose  it.  It  is  a  comparatively 
simple  thing  to  train  men  to  prepare  a  report  of 
the  financial  affairs  of  this,  that,  or  the  other 
corporation,  according  to  a  formal  routine  laid 
do^\Ti  in  the  accountant's  ofiice.  It  is  a  much  more 
difficult  thing  to  secure  accountants  who  have  had 
such  preliminary  training  that  they  show  the  same 
analytical  power  possessed  by  a  great  corpora- 
tion lawyer,  and  are  able  to  adapt  their  methods 
to  the  specific  problems  and  necessities  of  the  par- 
ticular corporation.    No  man  of  limited  training 

308 


Education  for  Business 

can  do  this.  It  requires  imagination  to  know 
what  term  to  substitute  for  capital  in  a  School 
like  this  which  has  no  capital.  It  requires  sagac- 
ity born  of  a  wide  experience  and  considerable 
reflection  to  pick  out  the  important  factors  of  a 
business  and  distinguish  the  essential  points  of 
view  for  the  managers  and  for  the  stockholders 
from  the  unessential  points.  Accountancy  as  a 
profession  has  seemed  too  ready  to  give  up  the 
task  of  attempting  to  analyze  corporation  re- 
ports and  certify  to  their  accuracy,  preferring  the 
easier  task  of  preparing  a  report  of  their  own  in 
accordance  with  fixed  formulas,  so  reducing  the 
risk  of  error  in  the  report  and  Tninimizing  the 
amount  of  intense  analytical  mental  activity  which 
the  examiner  must  exercise.  To  let  some  one  else 
do  the  thinking  may  make  a  profession  safe ;  it  will 
never  make  it  great.  I  see  far  enough  ahead, 
therefore,  to  realize  that  Mr.  Haskins  has  left  us  a 
larger  task  than  we  have  yet  been  able  to  perform. 
In  Mr.  Haskins'  own  words — ''so  far  we  have  just 
begun  to  approach  the  foot  of  the  professional 
ladder.  But  as  we  look  up  and  ask  for  further 
educational  guidance,  we  realize  that  we  have 
come  to  a  lonesome  place  where  few  meet  us,  and 
these  but  newcomers  and  inquirers  like  ourselves.'* 
For  one  thing,  I  should  like  to  see  the  School  of 
Commerce  provided  with  endowments,  so  that  it 
could  do  what  the  new  government  commercial 
school  of  Japan  does — limit  the  number  of  its 
students  in  accountancy  to  200,  selecting  these  as 
the  best  qualified  from  among  a  thousand  appli- 

309 


Education  lor  Business 

cants.  I  should  like  to  see  the  course  of  study 
made  so  intensive  and  extensive,  that  the  posses- 
sion of  a  degree  from  this  School  would  be  prima 
facie  evidence  that  the  man  could  do  any  of  the 
tasks  of  an  able  Certified  Public  Accountant  in  a 
superior  way.  At  the  same  time,  I  would  not  cut 
off  the  wider  influence  of  the  School,  but  would 
endeavor  to  carry  out  Mr.  Haskins'  second  idea, 
of  widening  the  outlook  and  improving  the  effi- 
ciency of  young  business  men. 

Mr.  Crane  of  Chicago  has  recently  published  a 
book  to  prove  that  America  is  all  wrong,  and  that 
money  spent  on  Higher  Education  is  all  wasted. 
He  has  given  it  the  title,  "The  Utility  of  All  Kinds 
of  Higher  Schooling,"  but  the  fitter  title  would 
be,  "The  Fuiilitij  of  All  Higher  Schooling."  He 
is  quite  convinced  that  in  the  Crane  shops  he  has 
a  better  university  than  Mr.  Rockefeller's  mil- 
lions can  ever  build.  But  even  Mr.  Crane  seems 
to  believe  in  books  and  the  efficacy  of  the  pen. 
One  of  the  tasks  of  this  school — a  task  for  which 
Mr.  Haskins  himself  pointed  the  way  in  his  book 
on  Business  Education  and  Accounting — is  and 
vdW  continue  to  be,  to  describe  business  processes 
in  scientific  terms,  to  observe  and  classify  and 
name  the  phenomena  of  modem  business,  so  that 
the  human  mind  may  grasp  them,  discover  their 
significance,  and  generalize  regarding  them.  It  is 
astonishing  to  find  how  little  scientific  knowledge 
w^e  possess  of  the  great  business  world  which  is  all 
about  us.  That  there  exists  here  a  fruitful  field 
for  university  research  was  recognized  even  in  the 

310 


Education  for  Business 

early  days  of  this  university,  when  provision  was 
made  in  the  original  plan  for  a  professorship  of 
commerce.  The  task  belongs  preeminently  to  this 
school,  because  no  place  in  the  world  offers  so 
great  opportunities  for  this  study  as  this  richest 
city  in  the  world,  itself  an  epitome  of  the  world's 
business. 

As  I  have  said,  Mr.  Haskins  left  no  building  and 
no  endowment  to  the  School  he  was  instrumental 
in  founding.  He  left,  however,  a  fruitful  idea, 
and  unless  the  history  of  the  world  in  this  genera- 
tion is  to  differ  from  the  history  of  the  world  in 
all  other  generations,  this  idea  must  eventually 
clothe  herself  with  a  home  and  with  material  sub- 
stance. The  record  of  the  endowments  of  the 
University  of  Cambridge,  England,  shows  that 
back  in  medieval  days  it  was  not  uncommon  for 
money  to  be  left  to  the  colleges  and  along  with  the 
money  a  chest  to  keep  the  money  in.  The  chests 
outlasted  the  money,  but  none  of  them,  unfortu- 
nately, developed  the  quality  of  the  widow's  barrel, 
and  the  money  taken  from  the  chest  did  not  re- 
turn. We  trust  that  we  shall  not  have  to  wait 
long  for  the  adequate  housing  of  the  work  of  the 
School  of  Commerce,  but  better  that  we  should 
have  a  fruitful,  multiplying  idea,  which  at  the  end 
of  ten  years  cries  for  more  room,  than  that  we 
should  find  ourselves  at  this  time  the  possessors 
of  an  empty  shell,  its  golden  store  all  spent.  It 
is,  therefore,  with  sincere  appreciation  that  the 
university  joins  in  paying  tribute  to  Mr.  Has- 
kins and  his  large  part  in  the  establishment  of 

311 


Education  for  Business 

this  School  of  Commerce,  Accounts  and  Finance; 
and  as  we  recall  the  first  Dean,  we  think  of  his 
ideal  of  perfect  accountancy:  ''forethought, 
friendliness,  artful  getting  at  things,  fire  of  rea- 
son, mathematical  accuracy,  adherence  to  truth." 


31^ 


A  GRADUATE  SCHOOL  FOR  THE 
METROPOLIS 

THE  dedication  of  the  splendid  dormitories 
and  dining-hall  of  the  Graduate  School  of 
Princeton,  on  a  site  entirely  distinct  from  the  site 
of  the  undergraduate  college,  has  focused  attention 
anew  on  this  aspect  of  university  work  in  Amer- 
ica, and  has  so  objectified  ideas  long  current 
among  American  universities,  that  even  the  public 
at  large  is  beginning  to  inquire  as  to  the  nature 
and  aim  of  graduate  work.  The  public  has  been 
familiar  for  some  time  with  the  Ph.D.  and  his 
peculiarities,  has  joined  more  or  less  seriously  in 
the  discussion  as  to  his  availability  for  practical 
life,  and  has  hesitated  between  an  attitude  of  ad- 
miration and  of  ridicule.  The  teacher  in  all 
grades,  however,  has  discovered  that  the  degree 
has  at  least  money  value,  and  an  ever  increasing 
number  are  seeking  it  as  a  practical  means  of  ad- 
vancement in  their  profession.  Recent  statistics 
published  in  ''Science'^  show  that  in  the  last  six- 
teen years  the  degree  of  Doctor  of  Philosophy  or 
Doctor  of  Science  has  been  secured  by  5,237  per- 
sons in  forty-four  American  universities,  besides 
all  of  those  who  have  secured  the  degree  abroad. 
Of  this  number,  461  were  given  in  1913.  If  the 
same  proportion  holds  for  the  other  institutions 

313 


A   Graduate  School  for  the  Metropolis 

as  for  Now  York  University  between  the  number 
of  students  in  the  Graduate  School  and  the  num- 
ber attaining  to  the  highest  degree,  we  should  not 
be  far  wrong  in  placing  the  number  of  graduate 
students  this  year  at  10,000.  Dr.  Oilman,  first 
president  of  Johns  Hopkins  University,  has  told 
very  graphically  the  difficulty  he  had  when  he 
graduated  from  college,  of  finding  any  opportunity 
in  America  to  pursue  advanced  studies  in  the  sub- 
ject in  which  he  was  interested.  In  the  first  half 
of  the  nineteenth  century,  there  were  a  good  many 
college  professors  in  America  who  knew  a  great 
deal  more  than  they  had  opportunity  to  teach 
their  students,  but  there  was  little  or  no  systematic 
provision  for  giving  this  instruction  to  the  excep- 
tional student  who  wanted  it.  The  result  was 
that  our  most  ambitious  young  men  necessarily 
went  abroad  to  study,  and  few  student  lists  are 
more  interesting  or  sigiiificant  than  the  list  of 
young  Americans  who  studied  at  German  univer- 
sities in  the  first  half  of  the  last  century,  from 
Henry  W.  Longfellow  to  J.  Pierpont  Morgan. 

When  the  foundation  of  New  York  University 
was  under  discussion  in  this  city  in  1829,  one  of 
the  arguments  used  for  its  establishment  was  that 
it  ought  to  be  possible  to  find  in  America  the 
knowledge  which  at  that  time  could  only  be  found 
abroad.  At  the  conference  which  met  in  New 
York  City  in  1830  to  discuss  the  aim  and  methods 
of  university  instruction,  papers  were  presented 
that  discussed  university  education  not  only  in 
England,  Scotland  and  Ireland,  but  in  Germany, 

314 


A  Graduate  School  for  the  Metropolis 

France,  Switzerland  and  Spain.  As  a  result  of 
the  discussions  at  this  convention,  the  ideas  of 
the  founders  of  this  university  were  broadened, 
and  whereas  the  earlier  argument  for  the  estab- 
lishment of  the  university  laid  stress  upon  extend- 
ing to  every  boy  opportunity  to  pursue  the  ac- 
quisition of  knowledge  in  any  department  of  liter- 
ature or  science,  according  to  his  own  preference 
or  that  of  this  parents  or  guardian,  free  from  the 
control  of  any  sect  either  in  religion,  politics  or 
education,  the  later  appeals  laid  emphasis  as  well 
on  what  we  should  now  know  as  graduate  instruc- 
tion. Thus  in  the  memorial  addressed  to  the 
Legislature  of  the  State  of  New  York,  unanimously 
adopted  by  the  University  Council,  when  apply- 
ing for  a  charter  in  1831,  it  was  stated : 

''An  anxiety  has  long  been  entertained  by  men 
of  letters,  that  a  seminary  should  be  furnished 
by  this  country,  presenting  the  same  advantages 
for  a  finished  education  which  are  enjoyed  in  the 
great  universities  of  Europe.  The  attempts  here- 
tofore made  have  undoubtedly  been  attended  "with 
some  degree  of  success  and  encouragement,  but 
no  institution  of  the  kind  has  yet  risen  to  great 
preeminence.  Your  petitioners  are  aware  of  the 
impediments  to  any  immediate  or  great  success  in 
such  undertakings,  arising  out  of  the  commercial 
character  of  our  citizens,  the  small  number  of 
those  who  make  letters  a  profession,  and  the  dis- 
ability of  such  institutions  under  the  laws  as  they 
exist  with  us,  to  introduce  their  graduates  into 
the  learned  professions.    Your  petitioners,  how- 

315 


A   Graduate  School  for  the  Metropolis 

ever,  are  i)ersuaded  that  the  City  of  New  York 
affords  advantages  which  give  greater  assurance 
of  success  in  this  respect,  than  can  at  present  be 
looked  for  in  any  other  part  of  the  country.  In- 
dependent of  the  numbers  who  may  be  expected 
out  of  213,000  inhabitants  to  avail  themselves  of  a 
course  of  instruction  in  the  highest  departments  of 
learning,  the  position  of  the  city  is  most  advan- 
tageously adapted  to  attract  students  and  men  of 
letters  from  other  states  and  from  abroad  to  an 
institution  of  this  character.  This  city  will  always 
offer  opportunities  for  men  of  science,  whilst  pur- 
suing their  studies  at  the  university,  at  the  same 
time  to  obtain  profitable  emplojonents  as  instruc- 
tors, writers,  or  otherwise,  thus  securing  an  im- 
mediate profitable  recompense  for  the  time  and  ex- 
pense devoted  to  their  own  improvement.  Your 
petitioners  can  speak  with  no  precision  upon  this 
subject,  but  if  they  may  be  allowed  to  draw  con- 
clusions from  a  consideration  of  circumstances 
commonly  connected  with  a  university  course  of 
instruction,  they  would  feel  great  confidence  in 
the  anticipation  that  this  department  would  be 
speedily  filled,  and  that  it  would  dispense  blessings 
of  inestimable  magnitude  to  all  parts  of  our  com- 
mon country." 

The  fourfold  division  made  by  the  founders  of 
the  university  in  1831,  into  first  what  we  know 
as  the  regular  college  course;  second,  college  ex- 
tension, ''where  persons  of  various  ages  and  de- 
grees of  preparation  may  connect  themselves  with 
the  university,  may  pursue  at  their  election  any 

316 


A  Graduate  School  for  the  Metropolis 

branch  of  study  taught  there,  so  that  the  mechanic 
can  obtain  for  his  son  who  is  destined  to  continue 
his  calling  an  opportunity  of  learning  what  the 
sciences  have  discovered  in  aid  of  his  business, 
and  so  that  young  men  may  go  from  the  halls  of 
the  university  to  the  counting-house  with  the  con- 
viction that  everything  they  have  learned  will  be 
of  ready  and  useful  application  in  the  business  for 
which  they  are  preparing  themselves,  so  that 
crowds  of  youths  will  acquire  and  carry  with  them 
into  their  various  employments  a  just  appreciation 
of  learning  in  its  application  to  the  business  and 
enjoyment  of  life";  third,  the  professional  schools, 
law,  medicine,  etc.;  and  fourth,  the  graduate 
schools  and  research, — is  a  division  which  can 
hardly  be  improved  upon  to-day. 

A  Graduate  School  for  New  York,  as  thus  con- 
ceived by  the  founders  of  the  university,  differs 
somewhat  from  the  ideal  of  a  Graduate  School 
which  has  found  expression  at  Princeton.  The 
Princeton  Graduate  School  will  be  the  child  of  the 
English  university,  while  the  New  York  Gradu- 
ate School  will  be  rather  the  child  of  the  German 
university.  The  Princeton  Graduate  School  in 
the  first  place  lays  stress  on  the  home  for  the  stu- 
dents; the  buildings  to  be  first  erected  are  resi- 
dence halls  and  a  dining-hall  where  all  may  eat 
together.  The  location  is  a  beautiful,  healthful 
one,  because  of  the  high  ground  on  which  it  stands, 
and  opportunity  for  golf  and  tennis  is  immediately 
at  hand.  The  new  Graduate  College  is  a  beauti- 
ful home,  but  for  the  present  at  least  it  is  some- 

317 


A  Graduate  School  for  the  Metropolis 

what  at  a  disadvantage  as  a  workshop,  because  it 
is  over  half  a  mile  from  library,  laboratory,  or 
recitation  room.  Of  the  money  which  the  student 
of  the  Princeton  Graduate  School  pays  to  the  uni- 
versity, $300  or  more  goes  to  the  expense  of  food 
and  shelter,  while  only  $15  or  $25  goes  to  the 
expense  of  instruction.  The  Princeton  idea,  like 
the  Oxford  idea,  is  the  man  as  a  man  first,  as  a 
student  second.  The  Princeton  ideal  is  rather  the 
ideal  of  living  with  knowledge,  particularly  the 
knowledge  which  is  the  accumulation  of  past  ages, 
than  the  creation  of  new  knowledge  in  a  laboratory 
or  at  the  forge.  The  Princeton  Graduate  School, 
as  stated  by  Dean  West  in  his  address  last  week, 
aims  to  correct  certain  defects  in  graduate  stu- 
dies that  now  exist  elsewhere,  namely  the  wor- 
ship of  degrees,  the  estrangement  of  special  knowl- 
edge from  general  knowledge,  the  lack  of  care 
for  the  physical  well-being  of  students,  and  the 
lack  of  adjustment  of  students  to  future  occupa- 
tions. The  object  of  having  the  men  live  together 
in  a  separate  institution  is,  according  to  Presi- 
dent Hibben,  to  provide  human  intercourse,  not 
to  exclude  it ;  and  if  the  manner  of  life  produces, 
as  Dean  "West  hopes  and  as  I  believe  he  has  a 
right  to  hope,  men  companionable,  magnanimous 
and  free,  who  recognize  that  in  learning  is  one 
of  the  great  pleasures  of  life,  it  will  have  justified 
its  existence. 

And  yet,  as  a  result  of  the  discussion  which  has 
raged  about  the  founding  of  this  new  school,  even 
the  advocates  of  the  home  idea  themselves  have 

318 


A  Graduate  School  for  the  Metropolis 

felt  that  the  ideal  of  the  life  according  to  reason, 
which  might  have  satisfied  the  Stoic  philosopher, 
would  not  satisfy  the  Christianized  conscience  of 
the  America  of  to-day ;  and  curiously  enough,  this 
fact  has  found  physical  expression  in  the  addition 
to  the  residence  halls  of  the  Cleveland  Tower, 
built  on  broader  proportions,  dominating — some- 
what dwarfing  the  earthclinging  quadrangle,  and 
symbolizing  service  to  the  community. 

One  effect  of  the  establishment  of  the  new 
Graduate  School  at  Princeton  has  been  to  give  a 
new  front  to  the  property  of  the  Princeton  Theo- 
logical Seminary,  and  as  you  walk  past  the  Semi- 
nary to  the  Graduate  School,  the  question  natu- 
rally suggests  itself :  in  what  respect  is  the  Gradu- 
ate School  to  be  different  from  the  Theological 
Seminary?  For  years  the  Seminary  has  been  the 
home  of  students  of  the  same  scholastic  grade, 
namely,  graduates  of  an  undergraduate  college, 
as  the  new  Graduate  School  is  to  accommodate. 
As  in  the  case  of  the  new  Graduate  School,  it  has 
seemed  to  the  friends  of  the  theological  students 
that  a  comfortable  home  was  of  the  essence  of  a 
theological  seminary,  and  churches  all  over  the 
country  have  taken  an  interest  in  the  Theological 
Seminary  as  have  the  friends  of  the  Graduate 
School,  in  furnishing  the  rooms,  even  to  the  sheets 
on  the  beds.  The  Seminary  has  been  a  company 
of  students,  free  from  worldly  cares  and  avoca- 
tions, enjoying  many  of  them,  like  the  scholars  of 
the  Graduate  College,  the  aid  of  endowed  scholar- 
ships.    They  have   given   three  years — approxi- 

319 


A  Graduate  School  jot  the  Metropolis 

mately  the  same  time  as  will  be  given  by  the  stu- 
dents of  the  Graduate  School — to  advanced  study, 
mostly  in  languages,  and  to  familiarizing  them- 
selves with  great  writers  of  the  past.  What  is  it 
then  that  makes  the  Graduate  School  new  and 
modern,  while  the  Theological  Seminary  is  old, 
and  some  would  say  out-of-date?  The  first  obvi- 
ous distinction  is,  that  one  is  a  professional  school, 
which  has  definite  future  work  in  view.  The 
Graduate  School  will  try  to  keep  professionalism 
outside  its  gates,  welcoming  knowledge  only  be- 
cause it  is  knowledge,  searching  out  truth  for  the 
sake  of  truth  and  not  as  a  gospel  for  human  wel- 
fare. And  yet  even  Dean  West  expects  the  studies 
to  be  adjusted  to  the  future  occupations  of  the 
students.  Perhaps  after  all,  then,  we  shall  find 
that  the  Graduate  School  is  not  so  different  from 
the  Theological  Seminary  as  we  had  at  first  sup- 
posed, and  that  it  but  illustrates  the  differentia- 
tion that  has  come  in  the  teaching  which  was  all 
performed  by  the  dominie  in  the  early  days,  when 
John  Knox  gave  to  every  parish  a  school-house, 
but  which  has  shared  the  expansion  which  the 
twentieth  century  has  brought  to  the  field  of  knowl- 
edge itself. 

The  Graduate  School  which  the  founders  of  New 
York  University  had  in  mind  for  this  city,  when  its 
population  numbered  213,000,  and  which  it  is  the 
ideal  of  the  university  still  to  create  when  the 
city's  population  numbers  5,000,000,  is  of  a  some- 
what different  order.  It  is  as  I  have  said  the  child 
of  the  German  university  rather  than  the  child  of 

320 


A  Graduate  School  for  the  Metropolis 

the  English  university.  It  does  not  begin  with  the 
idea  of  the  home.  Practically  no  dormitory  foun- 
dations have  been  provided  for  German  university 
students,  except  for  theological  students.  This  is 
not  because  it  would  not  be  desirable  to  have  com- 
fortable homes  for  the  students,  but  because  the 
universities  have  been  concerned  with  what  from 
the  university  point  of  view  is  more  important. 
Nor  has  the  University  of  Paris  approached  the 
subject  of  university  instruction  from  the  stand- 
point of  a  home  for  students.  As  was  stated  at 
Princeton  last  week,  the  University  of  Paris  was 
originally  a  residence  college,  but  that  was  in  the 
days  when  it  was  a  church  institution,  and  shared 
the  provision  which  the  Church  made  for  its 
orders.  At  the  present  time,  the  Latin  Quarter 
is  probably  more  famous  than  the  University  of 
Paris;  but  like  Boston,  the  Latin  Quarter  is 
rather  a  state  of  mind  than  a  physical  habitation. 
The  German  and  French  idea  of  the  university 
may  be  said  to  begin  and  end  with  the  individual 
university  professor;  and  if  we  are  to  have  a 
Graduate  School  in  New  York,  which  is  to  be  what 
the  founders  of  1830  expected  it  to  be,  we  must 
begin  at  that  end  of  the  problem.  It  is  the  appre- 
ciation of  this  fact  that  has  made  Harvard  great 
in  graduate  work.  When  confronted  with  the  al- 
ternative between  a  respectable  man  or  a  man 
whose  eccentricity  may  prove  to  be  either  genius 
or  failure,  it  has  risked  the  failure  in  the  hope  of 
securing  a  possible  genius.  The  fame  of  Harvard 
rests   rather   on   Kittredge   and  Eoyce   than   on 

321 


A   Graduate  School  for  the  Metropolis 

Coiiaiit  and  Randall.  To  solve  the  problem  of  the 
g-roatest  Graduate  School  for  the  City  of  New 
York,  is  only  to  solve  the  problem  of  securing  and 
holding  the  twenty  greatest  experts  in  twenty  sub- 
jects, who  add  to  a  national  reputation  rugged 
character  and  reasonable  teaching  ability.  The 
only  thing  that  \d\\  make  men  study  in  New  York 
rather  than  Berlin,  will  be  the  fact  that  the  New 
Y'ork  professor  is  reputed  the  greater  authority 
than  the  Berlin  professor.  When  you  go  to  Ger- 
many and  are  told  that  the  best  book  on  Psychol- 
ogy is  that  written  by  William  James  of  Boston, 
it  reverses  the  tide  of  graduate  students.  When 
you  go  to  Vienna  and  are  told  that  the  best  instru- 
ments for  throat  manipulation  are  those  in  use  in 
New  Y^'ork,  it  reverses  the  tide  of  graduate  stu- 
dents. It  will  not  do  it  all  at  once,  because  you 
wall  remember  that  William  James  himself 
studied  in  Germany,  and  that  the  physicians  who 
invented  the  instruments  studied  in  Germany,  so 
that  a  generation  "svill  be  required  for  the  rule  to 
work  itself  out ;  and  there  will  always  remain  truth 
in  the  sa^'ing: 

"How  much  the  goose  who  has  been  sent  to  roam 
Excels  the  goose  who  always  stays  at  home." 

The  best  graduate  student  is  the  one  who  is  not 
content  with  second-hand  goods ;  it  is  the  one  who 
is  dissatisfied  until  he  has  traced  knowledge  to  its 
fountain  head,  has  seen  for  himself  those  things 
■^vhich  rest  upon  seeing,  and  has  heard  for  himself 
those  things  which  rest  upon  authority.     So  long, 

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A  Graduate  School  for  the  Metropolis 

therefore,  as  his  teachers  cite  foreign  authorities 
as  the  conclusive  word  in  the  agrument,  he  will 
look  to  the  foreign  authorities  as  the  fountain  head 
of  knowledge.  This  axiom — that  the  first,  last  and 
only  task  of  the  university  administrator  who 
would  make  a  great  graduate  school  is  to  find  and 
keep  the  right  professors,  has  been  given  prac- 
tical application  in  America  in  more  than  one  in- 
stance. It  governed  the  formation  of  the  first 
faculty  at  Johns  Hopkins.  It  w^as  the  newest  and 
most  notable  thing  in  the  inauguration  of  Chicago 
University,  that  it  tempted  with  salaries  of  $7,000 
— at  that  time  unheard  of  in  university  circles — 
teachers  of  national  prominence  to  throw  in  their 
lot  with  the  new  institution.  The  history  of  these 
institutions,  however,  shows  that  the  problem  is 
not  as  simple  a  one  as  might  be  supposed.  The 
authority  of  to-day  is  not  the  authority  of  to- 
morrow. The  achievements  of  the  young  make  the 
fame  of  yesterday  the  empty  pretense  of  to-day, 
and  the  university  has  no  method  of  scrapping  its 
out-of-date  machinery,  as  the  factory  and  street 
railway  have.  The  establishment  of  the  Carnegie 
Pension  Fund  has  somewhat  accelerated  the  pro- 
cess, but  even  with  that  fund  in  existence,  the  uni- 
versity administration  must  face  the  fact  that  in 
selecting  a  professor  it  is  entering  into  a  connec- 
tion more  indissoluble  even  than  the  marriage  tie 
in  these  days,  and  that  the  chair  of  Greek,  Latin 
or  English,  once  filled,  is  filled  for  better  or  worse 
once  for  all,  so  far  as  the  present  generation  is 
concerned.    It  was  Dr.  James  McCosh,  I  believe, 

323 


A  Graduate  School  for  the  Metropolis 

who  said  of  colleg-e  professors  that  few  died  and 
none  resigned.  It  is  right  that  university  pro- 
fessors should  enjoy  this  security  of  tenure.  Uni- 
versities are,  of  all  philanthropies,  the  most  long 
lived,  and  they  can  afford,  therefore,  to  use 
longer  units  in  measuring  their  efficiency  than 
more  ephemeral  institutions.  But  because  of  this 
security  of  tenure,  all  the  professorships  of  the 
new  foundation  should  not  be  filled  at  once,  with 
the  result  that  the  faculty  grow  old  together.  A 
graduate  school  which  is  to  maintain  its  reputa- 
tion and  authority  must  grow  like  a  palm,  not  like 
a  watermelon.  Its  life  will  be  manifested  by  fresh 
new  shoots  overtopping  the  old,  not  only  by  the 
swelling  girth  and  mellowness  of  its  choicest  fruit. 
If  some  one  were  to  give  me  to-morrow,  without 
restriction,  a  sum  equal  to  that  at  the  disposal  of 
Princeton  for  its  graduate  school,  namely  three 
million  dollars,  to  build  a  graduate  school  for  New 
York  University,  I  would  set  apart  the  entire 
amount  for  the  permanent  endowment  of  profes- 
sorships, and  would  devote  every  cent  of  the  in- 
come to  the  salaries  of  instructors  and  investi- 
gators. It  would  be  a  good  thing  to  have  resi- 
dence halls  for  graduate  students,  but  it  would  not 
be  essential  for  the  efficiency  of  such  a  graduate 
school  as  I  have  in  mind.  With  $150,000  a  year 
to  devote  to  professors'  salaries,  we  could  make 
of  the  whole  Washington  Square  section  of  this 
city  a  Latin  Quarter.  We  could  make  the  Gradu- 
ate School  not  national  but  international,  and  draw 
our  students  from  every  nation  of  the  globe.    In 

324 


A  Graduate  School  for  the  Metropolis 

this  way  we  should  hope  not  so  much  to  mold  the 
lives  of  individuals  as  to  mold  the  destinies  of 
nations,  to  a  greater  extent  even  than  was  dreamed 
of  by  Cecil  Rhodes.  We  have  seen  the  last  year 
the  effect  of  American  teaching  in  the  Balkans  and 
in  China.  It  is  to  make  a  great  difference  in  the 
history  of  future  civilization,  whether  the  young 
men  of  the  Orient  study  in  America  or  in  Ger- 
many, just  as  it  will  make  a  great  difference  to 
America,  whether  the  young  men  who  are  to  shape 
its  thought  study  in  Germany,  in  France,  or  in 
England.  As  the  nations  of  the  world  turn  from 
physical  force  to  reason  as  the  determining  factor 
in  progress,  the  significance  of  the  dominant  uni- 
versities is  to  be  greater  even  than  it  has  been  in 
the  past.  Just  as  Germany  selected  a  university 
as  the  best  instrument  for  turning  Alsace  from  a 
French  province  into  a  German  province,  just  as 
our  churches  are  coming  to  recognize  that  in  the 
Orient  it  is  the  schools  which  are  to  cast  the  deter- 
mining vote  between  the  religions  of  different  peo- 
ples; so  in  the  determination  of  which  type  of 
civilization  is  to  survive,  as  the  nations  of  the 
world  are  brought  into  closer  and  closer  relation, 
the  civilization  which  holds  the  key  to  the  uni- 
versities will  command  the  battle-ground.  The 
reason  such  great  results  might  be  anticipated 
from  the  expenditure  of  such  a  sum  of  money  for 
this  purpose  in  New  York  is  not  because  New  York 
produces  wiser  or  abler  men  than  other  localities, 
but  because  it  is  the  metropolis  of  the  New  World, 
its  financial  and  social  capital,  and,  therefore,  an 

325 


A  Graduate  School  for  the  Metropolis 

irresistible  magnet  for  the  more  ambitious.  The 
very  instinct  which  makes  the  best  graduate  stu- 
dent— namely,  to  be  content  with  nothing  less  than 
the  best — would  operate  to  bring  these  best  stu- 
dents to  New  York,  provided  the  greatest  teachers 
of  the  country  were  to  be  found  here. 

New  York  ought  to  have  endowed  professor- 
ships, which  in  the  amount  of  salary  as  compared 
with  the  amount  of  salary  in  other  cities,  would  be 
proportionate  to  the  amount  New  York  spends  for 
other  things  compared  with  what  other  cities 
spend.  As  I  pointed  out  in  my  last  annual  report, 
we  ought  to  have  endowed  research  professor- 
ships in  medicine,  paying  at  least  $10,000  a  year, 
comparing  in  dignity  and  in  opportunities  for 
service  with  the  bishoprics  of  churches.  We 
ought  to  have  professorships  in  other  depart- 
ments, which  would  yield  something  more  than  the 
average  standard  of  living  of  the  professorial 
grade.  The  benefit  of  such  liberal  foundations 
would  not  be  confined  to  the  individual  holder.  It 
is  a  well-kno^\m  fact  that  wdiat  drawls  talent  into 
a  profession  is  not  the  average  reward,  but  the 
existence  of  great  prizes  which  may  be  obtained 
by  the  exceptional  few.  Thus  in  the  hearings 
held  by  the  Royal  Commission  on  the  University 
of  London,  Dr.  Edouard  Eist  of  Paris  gave  it  as 
his  opinion  that  the  reason  why  smaller  German 
universities — Marburg,  Erlangen  and  Wurtzburg 
— can  command  the  services  of  able  young  men 
as  teachers  of  medicine,  is  that  when  a  man  has 
worked  a  few  years  at  Marburg  or  Erlangen,  if  he 

326 


A  Graduate  School  for  the  Metropolis 

is  successful  he  is  quite  sure  to  go  to  Munich,  Ber- 
lin or  Vienna,  to  become  one  of  the  glories  of  the 
day.  Thus  the  effect  of  the  great  prizes  of  the 
metropolis  is  felt  to  the  most  remote  corner  of  the 
educational  system.  Nor  is  the  benefit  enjoyed  by 
the  provincial  university  a  temporary  one.  Often 
the  freedom  from  distraction  of  the  smaller  uni- 
versity gives  a  great  teacher  such  great  scientific 
satisfaction  that  men  of  world-wide  reputation 
remain  in  the  small  university,  resisting  all  at- 
tempts to  remove  them  to  the  larger  cities,  like 
Erb  at  Heidelberg,  Kollisker  at  Wurtzburg,  or 
Behring  at  Marburg.  No  New  Yorker  need  hesi- 
tate, therefore,  to  set  up  great  foundations  in  New 
York,  for  fear  of  weakening  other  parts  of  our 
educational  system.  The  benefit  of  such  great 
prizes  would  not  be  confined  to  New  York,  but 
would  strengthen  the  profession  of  teaching,  wher- 
ever found. 

The  business  men  of  New  York  are  perhaps  too 
much  inclined  to  think  of  New  York  in  relation  to 
universities,  as  they  think  of  it  in  relation  to  their 
great  business  corporations,  as  a  good  place  for 
a  central  office,  like  the  Carnegie  Foundation, 
Presbyterian  College  Board,  or  the  General  Edu- 
cation Board,  but  a  poor  place  for  a  factory  or  a 
home.  This  feeling  is  increased  by  the  fact  that 
so  large  a  proportion  of  the  successful  men  of  New 
York  have  come  to  it  from  outside,  and  their 
stronger  affections  center  around  the  home  of  their 
youth,  whether  it  be  Ohio,  Massachusetts,  Ken- 
tucky,  Canada,   Scotland,   or  Germany;   so   that 

327 


A  Graduate  School  for  the  Metropolis 

Avhen  they  come  to  make  great  gifts,  they  prefer 
to  build  in  the  peaceful  atmosphere  of  home 
rather  than  on  the  battlefield.  No  city,  however, 
can  be  truly  great  which  does  not  provide  a  place 
for  the  greatest  living  teachers.  If  it  is  true  that 
no  prophet  can  perish  outside  of  Jerusalem,  it  is 
equally  true  that  Jerusalem  cannot  continue  to  ex- 
ist without  its  prophets.  It  is  only  a  superficial 
view  that  thinks  of  a  great  city  as  no  place  for 
study.  There  is  no  solitude  like  that  of  a  great 
city.  As  a  man  said  to  me  last  week,  he  never 
knew  what  study  was  until  he  saw  the  students  of 
Paris,  who  thought  nothing  when  absorbed  in  their 
subject  of  studying  the  whole  night  through,  with 
no  thought  of  sleep.  Great  research  institutions, 
like  the  Pasteur  Institute  in  Paris  and  the  Rocke- 
feller Institute  in  New  York,  having  no  students 
do  not  require  large  populations,  yet  take  their 
place  by  preference  in  the  large  cities.  So  the 
university  in  the  large  city  must  necessarily  find 
inspiration  in  the  intensity  and  vigor  of  city  life, 
and  here  alone  can  it  find  a  sufficiently  complex 
civilization  to  warrant  the  high  degree  of  special- 
ization which  modern  scholarship  demands.  Chi- 
cago, St.  Louis,  Nashville,  Denver,  San  Francisco, 
and  almost  every  town  of  ten  thousand  people  in 
our  great  West,  has  thought  of  a  great  school  as  a 
great  civic  asset.  Even  the  citizens  of  Brooklyn 
have  recently  turned  to  the  idea  of  a  university  as 
a  way  to  magnify  their  place  in  the  great  metropo- 
lis. The  King  of  England  has  appointed  succes- 
sive commissions  to  take  testimony  and  determine 

328 


A  Graduate  School  for  the  Metropolis 

how  the  University  of  London,  which  was  born  of 
the  same  university  movement  as  New  York  Uni- 
versity and  four  years  after  New  York  University, 
may  be  raised  to  the  position  of  a  truly  imperial 
university.  There  does  not  exist  as  yet  in  our 
city,  as  a  whole,  any  such  civic  consciousness  of 
the  importance  of  securing  for  New  York  a  pre- 
eminent place  in  the  world  of  learning;  and  New 
York  is  so  big  and  its  population  so  new  and  ever 
renewing  itself,  that  it  is  almost  impossible  to 
create  or  to  crystallize  any  such  sentiment.  But 
as  New  York  University  was  created  in  the  first 
instance  by  a  small  group  of  men,  with  the  cooper- 
ation of  a  small  group  in  the  New  York  Historical 
Society  and  in  the  Lyceum  of  Natural  Sciences; 
and  as  the  great  Princeton  Graduate  College  is 
not  the  work  of  any  considerable  number  but 
only  of  a  bare  half  dozen  persons,  so  we  may  ex- 
pect that  it  will  be  the  courage  and  generosity 
of  some  single  individual,  or  at  most  of  not  more 
than  half  a  dozen,  who  will  lift  New  York  to  the 
commanding  position  which  she  ought  to  occupy  in 
the  world  of  learning. 


329 


SCIENTIFIC  METHOD  AND  THERAPEUTIC 
IMPULSE 

THE  university  welcomes  you  to  the  study  of 
medicine  and  the  unlimited  possibilities 
which  the  field  of  medical  science  affords  at  the 
present  day.  You  are  beginning  a  course  of 
studj^  which  is  the  most  exacting  and  arduous  of 
any  offered  by  any  part  of  the  university.  In  the 
number  of  hours  required  and  in  the  intensity  of 
application,  the  medical  curriculum  surpasses  all 
others.  When  once  embarked  in  medical  study, 
you  will  have  little  time  for  reflection  on  the  gen- 
eral problems  of  your  professional  life.  The  time 
for  reflection  ^^dll  come  later  when  you  sit  in  your 
offices  awaiting  the  arrival  of  patients.  I  may, 
perhaps,  therefore,  as  one  outside  the  profession, 
on  this  opening  day,  venture  to  make  two  sugges- 
tions. 

Those  of  us  who  have  been  studying  the  prob- 
lems of  medical  education  created  by  the  recent 
developments  in  scientific  medicine  and  the  intro- 
duction of  laboratory  methods,  recognize  as  one 
of  the  serious  problems  of  to-day  the  coordination 
of  laboratory  and  clinic.  From  the  standpoint  of 
university  administration,  the  problem  is  how  to 
differentiate    laboratory    investigation    and    re- 


Address  to  the  first  year  class  of  the  University  and  Belle\Tie 
Hospital  Medical  College,  New  York  City,  October,  1910. 


Scientific  Method  and  Therapeutic  Impulse 

search,  which,  directly  or  indirectly,  contribute  to 
the  art  of  healing,  from  laboratoiy  research,  which 
sets  no  bounds  to  its  search  for  truth  and  treats 
facts  as  in  themselves  valuable.  The  problem  is 
difficult  because  it  is  hard  to  see  in  advance  what 
investigations  will  yield  facts  which  will  have 
practical  value.  There  is  a  disposition  on  the  part 
of  scientists,  therefore,  to  say  that  research  and 
investigation  must  be  unrestricted.  The  physi- 
cian, on  the  other  hand,  is  interested  in  a  concrete 
problem  and  makes  his  most  valuable  contribution 
to  the  advance  of  medical  science  when  he  formu- 
lates his  problem  clearly  and  asks  the  laboratory 
scientists  for  an  answer.  When  the  clinicians  are 
apt  at  stating  a  problem  and  when  their  faith  is 
increased  so  that  they  regard  it  as  reasonable  to 
expect  the  medical  science  of  to-day  to  solve  prob- 
lems which  it  has  never  solved  before,  the  two 
branches  of  medical  education  will  fall  into  proper 
correlation.  They  are  somewhat  disorganized  at 
present  because  the  laboratory  men  are  in  large 
measure  both  formulating  the  problems  and  an- 
swering them. 

As  relates  to  you  students,  the  problem  of  labor- 
atory and  clinic  takes  the  form  of  an  inquiry  as  to 
how  the  therapeutic  impulse  and  the  desire  to  cure 
your  fellow  men  of  their  ills  may  be  kept  warm 
and  unchilled  throughout  a  long  course  of  scien- 
tific study.  It  has  been  a  maxim  of  modern 
science  that  the  true  student  and  the  true  lover 
of  truth  must,  so  far  as  possible,  divorce  his  in- 
tellect from  emotion.    In  some  way,  he  must  dis- 

331 


Scientific  Method  and  Therapeutic  Impulse 

connect  his  perceptions  from  hopes  and  fears  and 
from  the  normal  reactions  which  attach  values  to 
ideas.  Just  as  it  has  always  been  true  that  a 
surgeon  too  greatly  concerned  for  his  patient's 
pains  does  not  perform  the  best  operation,  so,  to 
a  greater  extreme  (has  it  been  insisted  by  the 
scientist),  is  the  seeker  after  truth  handicapped  if 
his  observation  is  accompanied  by  interest  in  a 
practical  problem  or  concern  as  to  the  life  or  death 
of  a  patient.  In  the  first  place,  therefore,  while  I 
would  urge  you  to  acquire  the  scientific  habit  of 
mind,  which  discriminates  clearly  between  what  it 
sees  and  does  not  see,  what  is  definitely  known 
and  what  is  not  definitely  known,  what  can  be  ac- 
curately weighed,  and  measured,  and  tested  by 
chemical  reactions,  and  what  is  of  necessity 
hypothetical, — I  would,  at  the  same  time,  urge  you 
to  nourish  within  you  as  a  sacred  flame  what  I 
have  called  the  therapeutic  impulse,  the  desire  to 
heal  and  to  do  good  to  the  whole  man. 

This  carries  with  it  a  corollary  w^hich  is  the 
second  suggestion  I  would  urge  on  you  at  this 
time,  and  that  is  throughout  all  your  dealing  with 
facts  and  tissues  and  chemical  elements,  to  re- 
member that,  after  all,  you  will  find  yourselves 
called  to  minister  not  to  tissues  or  bones  as  such, 
unless  some  of  you  are  so  unfortunate  as  to  be 
made  coroners  and  to  find  autopsies  an  important 
part  of  your  profession,  but  you  will  be  called  to 
minister  to  li\'ing  men  who  are  not,  as  the  old 
psychology  would  have  us  believe,  bodies  with  a 
soul  placed  inside  of  them,  or  souls  temporarily 

332 


Scientific  Method  and  Therapeutic  Impulse 

hampered  by  a  somewhat  troublesome  body,  but 
who  are  a  unity  in  their  being,  manifesting  their 
life  in  both  physiological  and  psychological  phe- 
nomena. For  this  reason,  the  physician  who  en- 
ters upon  his  practice  in  the  spirit  in  which  he 
would  begin  work  in  a  morgue,  is  only  half 
equipped.  You  will  find  that  in  addition  to  your 
scientific  knowledge,  personality  will  count  for 
much  in  practice.  Do  not  throw  away,  therefore, 
during  your  course  any  vitality  or  strength  of 
personality  which  you  may  possess,  but  on  the 
contrary,  seek  to  strengthen  in  every  way  possible 
those  moral  fibers  which  go  to  make  up  what  we 
call  character  and  which  you  will  find  a  valuable 
asset  in  healing.  A  great  man  is  not  necessarily 
a  great  physician,  but  you  will  find  it  hard  to 
discover  an  eminent  medical  career  which  had  not 
the  backing  of  strong  manhood. 

The  university  this  summer,  at  a  cost  of  about 
$120,000,  has  increased  the  facilities  for  labora- 
tory research  and  instruction  and  we  have  large 
plans  for  further  improvements  which  may,  I 
trust,  sometime  see  fulfillment.  I  do  not  feel,  how- 
ever, that  the  university  will  be  doing  its  full 
duty  in  the  matter  of  medical  education  until  it  is 
able  also  to  provide  a  suitable  place  of  residence 
for  students  from  a  distance  and  to  do  its  part 
toward  making  its  men  not  only  well  informed  ac- 
cording to  the  latest  scientific  methods,  but  strong 
and  well  equipped  on  all  sides  of  their  person- 
alities so  that  they  may  carry  with  them  in  the 
personal  contact  which  their  profession  requires, 

333 


Scientific  Method  and  Therapeutic  Impulse 

strength  and  healing  for  both  mind  and  body. 
I  congratulate  you  upon  entering  this  college  at 
a  time  when  it  is  better  equipped  than  ever  before, 
both  in  instructors  and  plant,  to  give  the  best 
medical  education.  I  congratulate  you  on  coming 
to  this  college  better  prepared  in  point  of  pre- 
liminary education  than  any  class  which  has  en- 
tered in  the  past.  I  congratulate  you  on  your 
Dean — a  man  whose  hearty  interest  in  your  wel- 
fare is  as  big  and  broad,  as  strong  and  kindly,  as 
his  corporal  presence.  I  congratulate  you  on  be- 
ginning your  first  year's  work  under  such  a  master 
of  his  art  as  the  new  head  of  the  Department  of 
Anatomy,  Professor  Senior.  I  congratulate  you 
upon  entering  upon  the  study  of  medicine  at  a 
time  of  stress  and  controversy;  at  a  time  when 
medical  education  is  being  subjected  to  investiga- 
tion and  criticism ;  when  it  is  being  attacked  within 
by  its  friends  and  assailed  from  without  by  its 
foes ;  when  animal  experimentation,  the  very  basis 
of  modern  medical  science,  is  being  misrepresented 
and  misrated;  when  the  profession  which  has  re- 
tained preeminently  the  professional  spirit  of 
service  and  which  is  probably  the  freest  as  a  whole 
of  any  body  of  men  from  the  spirit  of  greed  and 
personal  aggrandizement,  is  attacked  as  a  trust, — 
for  unjust  and  harmful  as  are  these  attacks,  they 
will  raise  up  friends  as  well  as  foes.  They  will 
direct  public  attention  to  a  subject  which  has  been 
too  long  ignored.  They  ^\ill  mean  a  burning  away 
of  dead  tissue  and  new  life  and  vigor,  and,  as  it 
js   sfiid  th^t  njore  male  children  are  born  to  a 

334 


Scientific  Method  and  Therapeutic  Impulse 

nation  in  time  of  war,  so  doubtless  will  these  times 
of  stress  and  criticism  send  forth  from  this  uni- 
versity more  than  the  average  number  of  men  of 
marked  strength. 

There  is  enough  of  the  fire  of  battle  in  the  air, 
enough  of  the  romance  of  discovery  in  the  labora- 
tories about  us,  to  stir  the  pulses  and  kindle  the 
eyes,  I  am  sure,  of  every  one  of  you.  On  behalf 
of  the  university,  I  wish  you  success. 


335 


FRATERNITY  IDEALS 

TO  one  who  left  the  chapter  almost  eighteen 
years  ago,  the  Delta  seems  more  at  home  in 
this  neighborhood  than  in  the  strange  fields  in 
which  it  has  lately  wandered.  If  you  were  to  seek 
the  center  of  the  triangle  formed  by  the  three  loca- 
tions of  the  Delta — on  Broadway,  University 
Place  and  Eleventh  Street,  and  South  Washington 
Square — you  would  find  that  the  committee  on 
this  reunion  had  fixed  on  a  very  fair  compromise. 

The  active  men  of  the  chapter  of  that  day  are 
widely  scattered.  Brother  Adams,  who  acted  as 
my  guide  to  the  first  meeting  of  the  Delta  which 
I  attended,  is  in  Syria.  Brother  Frost,  in  whose 
charge  I  was  placed  as  an  initiate,  is  or  was  in 
Shanghai,  China.  Last  month  I  had  a  letter  from 
him,  saying  that  probably  it  would  be  necessary 
for  him  to  discontinue  the  practice  of  law  in  the 
United  States  Court  at  Shanghai,  because  the  revo- 
lutionists had  left  no  court  to  practice  in.  As 
spectacular  evidence  of  the  overthrow  of  the  gov- 
ernment, he  enclosed  a  banknote  of  the  old  regime, 
which  he  said  was  one  of  many  hundreds  thrown 
out  on  the  streets,  without  value. 

It  is  rather  an  age  of  overhauling  and  upturn- 
ing, of  stock-taking,  surveys  and  estimates,  and 

Address  to  graduates  of  Delta  Chapter  of  the  Psi  Upsilon  Fra- 
ternity, 1912. 


Fraternity  Ideals 

fraternities  have  come  in  for  their  share  of  the 
general  investigation.  The  most  notable  critical 
examination  of  fraternities  is  that  of  Mr.  Birds- 
eye  in  his  book  on  ' ' The  American  College."  You 
may  have  noticed  that  last  week  a  committee  re- 
ported on  high  school  fraternities,  stating  that 
whatever  might  be  the  merits  of  the  system  in 
colleges,  fraternities  were  an  unmitigated  evil  in 
high  schools.  Even  the  university  which  sought 
to  avoid  the  problems  of  fraternities  by  banishing 
them  from  the  campus,  has  had  a  battle  lost  and  a 
battle  won  over  the  question  of  eating  clubs  or 
near-fraternities.  A  notable  serial  is  now  run- 
ning in  one  of  our  leading  magazines,  in  which  the 
discussion  centers  about  the  effect  of  the  society 
system  at  another  leading  university  upon  the 
manhood  of  the  students. 

Along  with  criticism  has  gone  a  great  deal  of 
self-examination.  I  received  last  month  a  request 
from  a  general  officer  of  the  Zeta  Psi  Fraternity 
for  a  report  upon  the  scholastic  standing  of  the 
members  of  their  local  chapter.  President  Schur- 
man  of  Cornell  announced  at  the  beginning  of  the 
semester  this  month,  that  he  would  hereafter  at 
the  beginning  of  each  term  make  public  a  list, 
giving  the  relative  rating  of  fraternities  in  point 
of  scholarship.  The  President  of  Harvard  Uni- 
versity has  taken  the  lead  in  propounding  the  ques- 
tion of  how  to  secure  the  interest  in  the  things  of 
the  mind  for  which  the  college  properly  stands, 
and  a  great  deal  of  thought  is  being  given  to  the 
answer  to  the  question  by  college  officers  at  the 

337 


Fraternity  Ideals 

present  day.  As  yet  we  have  reached  no  agree- 
ment as  to  a  definition  of  liberal  education,  but  I 
think  we  are  all  gradually  coming  to  the  conclu- 
sion that  liberal  education,  as  some  one  has  ex- 
pressed it,  does  not  consist  in  being  able  to  read 
a  speedometer  and  write  a  check. 

There  are  certain  hopeful  signs  of  the  times. 
The  establishment  of  the  Elizabethan  Club  at  Yale 
by  Alexander  Smith  Cochran  by  the  gift  of 
several  hundred  thousand  dollars,  in  order  that 
there  may  be  a  place  at  that  university  where  an 
interest  in  things  literary  may  seem  normal  and 
not  the  eccentricity  of  a  grind;  the  aims  and 
methods  of  our  own  Andiron  Club,  and  other 
similar  organizations  throughout  the  country,  in- 
dicate that  there  will  be  a  renewal  of  brotherhoods 
in  which  a  common  intellectual  interest  is  the 
bond  of  union.  The  monogram  of  the  City  Club 
of  this  city  is  made  up  of  a  small  c  inside  of  a 
large  C.  The  Club,  they  say,  is  di\'ided  into  two 
parties ;  those  who  say  the  large  C  stands  for  City 
and  the  small  c  for  club,  and  those  who  say  the 
large  C  stands  for  Club  and  the  small  c  for  city. 
We  are  all  agreed  that  the  TJ  of  Psi  U.  stands  for 
Union,  but  some  would  interpret  the  Psi  as  stand- 
ing for  supper,  the  union  being  based  entirely  on 
social  tastes ;  while  others  conceive  that  it  was  in 
the  minds  of  the  authors  of  our  noble  liturgy  that 
there  should  be  also  union  in  the  finer  things  of 
the  spirit. 

I  trust  our  fraternities  will  never  become  pri- 
marily eating  clubs.    In  our  old  days  we  dined 

338 


Fraternity  Ideals 

together  but  rarely,  and  I  doubt  if  any  subsequent 
class  of  Psi  U's  ever  became  more  closely  knit 
than  were  the  Psi  U's  of  '94.  The  Delta  was  one 
of  the  first  Greek  Letter  chapters  of  the  country 
to  be  made  the  beneficiary  of  a  legacy  and  the  good 
example  of  Ogden  Butler  was  followed  by  Brother 
Webb  last  year.  I  trust  the  custom  may  grow, 
and  lest  any  of  you  should  feel  that  when  the 
House  is  free  of  debt  the  only  bequests  acceptable 
will  be  fine  paintings  and  table  services  of  gold 
and  silver,  I  want  to  suggest  that  the  way  is  open 
to  endow  teaching  fellowships  in  connection  with 
the  Chapter.  I  cannot,  of  course,  speak  for  the 
Council  or  Faculty,  but  I  feel  confident  that  a  plan 
might  be  worked  out  to  the  mutual  advantage  of 
the  College  and  Chapter,  by  which  if  the  Chapter 
fell  heir  to  $10,000  or  $20,000,  it  would  nominate 
to  the  university  a  Psi  U  alumnus  as  a  teaching 
fellow,  who  should  be  appointed  by  the  university 
as  a  member  of  the  Faculty,  but  who  should  be 
paid  by  the  fraternity,  live  in  the  Fraternity 
House  for  one  or  two  years,  and  represent  in  the 
life  of  the  fraternity  the  scholastic  side  of  college 
life.  The  stipend  should  not  be  so  large  as  to 
make  the  financial  inducement  a  primary  one,  be- 
cause the  success  of  the  plan  would  depend  on 
securing  a  man  with  an  irrepressible  thirst  for 
knowledge,  and  the  kind  of  effulgent  character 
which  disseminates  an  interest  in  things  intellec- 
tual as  naturally  and  irresistibly  as  some  other  one 
whistles  ''rag." 
Mr.  Birdseye  in  his  book  has  insisted  that  the 
339 


Fraternity  Ideals 

fraternity  shall  be  regarded  as  the  home  of  the 
student,  while  the  college  is  regarded  as  his  place 
of  business.  If,  however,  we  are  to  produce  our 
share  of  great  scholars  and  thinkers  in  America, 
our  share  of  the  great  poets,  authors  and  scien- 
tists, we  must  return  to  the  older  idea  of  the  col- 
lege as  the  common  home  of  the  students.  To 
my  mind,  it  is  carrying  the  doctrine  of  specializa- 
tion too  far  to  make  fraternities  exclusively  social 
organizations.  The  fruit  of  such  a  theory  of 
fraternity  was  shown  at  the  last  convention  of  our 
fraternity  in  this  city,  when  no  subject  on  the  long 
list  of  toasts  carried  any  hint  that  the  fraternity 
was  in  any  way  connected  with  an  institution  of 
learning,  or  set  any  store  by  the  increase  or  diffu- 
sion of  knowledge. 


340 


DEDICATION  OF  BAKER  HALL 

IT  is  my  agreeable  duty,  Mr.  Chairman,  to  report 
on  behalf  of  the  building  committee  the  comple- 
tion of  the  Cornelius  Baker  Hall  of  Philosophy. 
Mrs.  Kennedy's  generous  offer  was  first  an- 
nounced to  the  council  of  the  university  by  the 
Chancellor  Emeritus,  at  a  special  meeting  held 
May  13th,  1912.  The  council  at  once  accepted  the 
offer,  and  entrusted  the  erection  of  the  building 
to  the  building  committee  of  four,  one  of  whom — 
the  late  William  P.  Havemeyer — was  removed  by 
death  after  the  award  of  the  contracts,  but  before 
the  completion  of  the  building.  The  committee 
was  fortunate  in  securing  as  architect  Mr.  WilUam 
D.  Crow,  of  the  firm  Crow,  Lewis  &  Wickenhoefer, 
who  had  been  associated  with  Mr.  Stanford  White 
in  the  erection  of  Language  Hall  and  the  Library ; 
and  who  was,  therefore,  thoroughly  familiar  both 
with  the  general  scheme  for  the  quadrangle,  as 
conceived  by  Stanford  White,  and  also  with  the 
details  of  construction  of  Language  Hall,  of  which 
it  was  intended  the  Hall  of  Philosophy  should  be, 
architecturally,  a  reproduction.  The  committee 
were  also  glad  to  avail  themselves  of  the  offer  of 
the  firm  of  McKim,  Mead  &  White,  to  act  as  con- 
Address  at  dedication  of  the  Cornelius  Baker  Hall  of  Philos- 
ophy, New  York  University,  University  Heights,  New  York  City, 
October,  1914. 


Dedication  of  Baker  Hall 

suiting  architects.  Plans  were  matured  during 
the  summer;  and  on  November  6th,  1912,  not  quite 
two  years  ago,  the  general  contract  for  construc- 
tion was  awarded  to  the  E.  E.  Paul  Company,  who 
have  again  earned  the  gratitude  of  the  university 
for  the  careful  and  workmanlike  manner  in  which 
the  present  contract  has  been  carried  out.  Work 
progressed  rapidly,  and  we  confidently  hoped  the 
building  would  be  finished  within  a  year,  and  that 
these  exercises  of  dedication  might  have  been  held 
in  November,  1913.  The  spring  floods  of  1913  in 
Ohio,  however,  destroyed  the  factory  which  held 
the  contract  for  the  roof-tile,  and  caused  a  delay 
of  six  months  in  the  execution  of  the  order,  the 
tile  not  being  obtainable  elsewhere  in  the  United 
States.  The  building  in  the  meantime  was  fitted 
with  a  temporary  roof,  which  permitted  its  use 
by  classes ;  and  the  tile  having  finally  been  secured, 
the  building  was  completed,  accepted  by  the  com- 
mittee, and  the  final  payments  made  on  May  25th, 
1914.  Owing  to  the  absence  of  the  donor  in 
Europe,  the  dedication,  however,  has  been  de- 
ferred until  this  time.  The  donor's  original  offer 
was  to  provide  the  cost  of  the  building,  not  to 
exceed  $90,000.  The  committee  is  glad  to  be  able 
to  report  that  the  building  is  completed  for  the 
sum  of  $90,042.45.  This  includes  the  cost  of  light- 
ing, fixtures,  and  steam  main  connections ;  but  does 
not  include  any  heating  plant  or  dynamos,  the 
building  being  connected  w^th  the  university  heat- 
ing and  lighting  system  already  installed,  nor 
the  cost  of  excavation,  nor  the  foundations — which 

342 


Dedication  of  Baker  Hall 

were  put  in  place  at  the  time  of  the  erection  of 
the  Library  some  years  since.  On  Thanksgiving 
Day,  1912,  when  the  contract  prices  and  estimates 
for  the  new  building  were  reported  to  the  donor, 
Mrs.  Kennedy  most  generously  offered  to  add  to 
her  original  gift  $5,000  for  furniture,  and  $10,000 
conditioned  on  securing  $20,000  for  the  completion 
of  that  section  of  the  colonnade  of  the  Hall  of 
Fame  adjoining  the  Hall  of  Philosophy,  in  order 
that  the  work  might,  if  possible,  be  carried  on  at 
the  same  time  as  the  erection  of  this  building. 
Gifts  were  later  secured  to  meet  Mrs.  Kennedy's 
conditional  offer ;  and  our  guests  to-day  are  invited 
not  only  to  inspect  this  building,  but  also  to  inspect 
the  colonnade  about  the  quadrant,  which  serves  as 
a  frame  to  enhance  the  picture.  The  Hall  of  Phil- 
osophy thus  completes  a  group  of  educational 
buildings  which  is  generally  conceded  to  form 
one  of  the  notable  creations  of  American  collegiate 
architecture.  You  will  see  that  the  building  is 
severely  plain,  in  accordance  with  the  dictates  of 
Mr.  White's  classic  genius;  and  depends  for  its 
beauty  entirely  upon  its  proportions  and  upon  the 
warmth  of  its  color.  It  is — as  a  college  building 
ought  to  be — a  workaday  building.  Its  stairway, 
for  example,  is  not  and  does  not  profess  to  be  any- 
thing but  a  convenient  way  for  boys  to  get  up  and 
down.  The  size  of  the  building  is  determined  by 
the  size  of  the  classes  required;  and  the  size  of 
the  windows  by  the  demands  for  light  made  by 
modem  eyes.  The  rooms  are  rectangular,  the  hall 
spaces  are  no  larger  than  are  needed  to  permit 

343 


Dedication  of  Baker  Hall 

the  dispersal  of  classes ;  and  the  building  is,  there- 
fore, economical  to  heat  and  to  clean.  At  the  same 
time,  it  provides  private  offices  for  instructors, 
which  are  the  envy  of  instructors  who  teach  in 
more  pretentious  structures.  There  are  nine  of 
these  offices,  besides  nine  class-rooms,  two  labora- 
tories, the  museum  room,  and  this  auditorium. 
When  fully  occupied,  instruction  can  be  given  to 
over  600  students  in  this  building  at  one  time. 
In  1891,  when  Mrs.  Kennedy  lent  a  helping  hand 
to  the  uptown  movement  by  offering  her  house  for 
a  parlor  meeting.  University  Heights  was  only  a 
philosopher's  dream.  To-day,  thanks  to  Mr.  John 
Stewart  Kennedy,  the  campus  on  which  this  build- 
ing stands,  valued  at  over  a  million  dollars,  is 
free  of  debt ;  while  the  buildings  already  here  rep- 
resent another  million  and  a  half.  We  could  not 
trade  the  entire  grounds  and  buildings  for  one 
model  battle-ship;  but  then  we  do  not  want  to. 
The  two  and  a  half  millions  are,  we  believe,  more 
permanently  and  efficiently  invested  in  their  pres- 
ent form. 

This  Hall  of  Philosophy  is  a  memorial  to 
Cornelius  Baker.  It  thus  not  only  bears  an 
honored  name,  but  is  by  that  name  linked  closely 
with  the  early  history  of  the  university.  Mr. 
Baker  was  not  only  one  of  the  founders  of  this 
university,  a  member  of  its  Council  during  the 
five  trying  years  1834-1838,  a  subscriber  to  its 
first  $100,000  endo^\^nent  fund,  the  first  donor  of 
books  to  its  library ;  but  was  also  one  of  the  build- 
ing committee  which  had  charge  of  the  erection  of 

344 


Dedication  of  Baker  Hall 

the  Gothic  building  on  Wasliington  Square.  We 
have  no  report  of  tliat  building  committee  to  serve 
as  our  precedent  to-day ;  but  I  learn  from  the  diary 
of  the  eldest  son  of  Cornelius  Baker — William 
Edgar  Baker,  who  entered  the  university  in  1833, 
and  who  was  one  of  three  out  of  a  class  of  twenty 
who  completed  the  course,  that  when  he  entered 
in  September,  1833 — ''Buildings  had  not  yet  been 
erected,  but  a  house  in  Chambers  Street,  near 
Chatham  Street  was  used  as  a  temporary  accom- 
modation." (In  giving  courses  this  year,  there- 
fore, in  the  new  Municipal  Building,  astride  Cham- 
bers Street,  the  university  is  but  re-occupying  an 
earlier  position.)  In  1835,  however,  William 
Edgar  Baker  writes — ''I  commenced  my  Junior 
year  with  my  class  at  the  University,  the  building 
on  Washington  Square  being  sufficiently  com- 
pleted to  admit  of  entering  it,  which  although 
unfinished,  we  found  more  commodious  than  the 
cramped  place  in  Chambers  Street.  In  July  fol- 
lowing the  University  session  closed  as  usual;  but 
the  commencement  was  postponed  until  the  next 
session  in  October,  in  order  that  it  might  be  held 
in  the  new  chapel,  which,  however,  they  were  not 
able  to  accomplish,  as  it  was  not  finished.  In 
June  1837  my  collegiate  studies  drew  to  a  close. 
We  had  our  Commencement  on  the  20th  of  July 
in  the  chapel  of  the  university,  which  having  been 
lately  finished,  this  was  the  first  time  that  it  1^-^  ^ 
been  used  for  that  purpose.  According  to  the 
appointment  of  the  Faculty,  I  delivered  the  Latin 
salutatory  on  that  occasion."    We  have,  there- 

345 


Dedication  of  Baker  Hall 

fore,  no  greater  delay  in  completion  to  report, 
than  the  building*  committee  on  which  Cornelius 
Baker  served. 

I  learned  from  this  same  diary  that  not  only 
was  Cornelius  Baker  a  practical  business-man, 
serving  on  the  building  committee  which  com- 
pleted the  Washington  Square  Building,  in  spite 
of  strikes,  delays,  the  great  fire  of  1835,  and  the 
financial  panic  of  1837;  not  only  did  he  serve 
as  Chairman  of  the  Finance  Committee  and  of  the 
committee  which  prepared  the  plan  for  the  Medical 
School ;  but  that  he  was  a  lover  of  books,  and  that 
he  supplemented  his  own  education  as  a  young 
man  by  extensive  reading.  This  appreciation  of 
books  he  handed  down  to  his  son,  who  records  with 
exactness  in  his  diary,  as  he  visits  the  various  col- 
lege towns  in  vacation,  the  number  of  volumes 
then  to  be  found  in  the  libraries  of  Harvard,  of 
Amherst,  of  Dartmouth  and  of  Union.  I  learned 
too  that  he  was  a  man  of  broad  civic  interests, 
so  that  when  he  took  a  journey  for  the  sake  of  his 
health  in  the  vacation  of  Junior  year,  he  tarries  in 
Kentucky  and  calls  upon  Henry  Clay,  not  hitherto 
known  to  him,  and  talks  with  him  of  slavery  and 
politics.  He  was  a  man  too  of  a  fine  sense  of 
duty;  so  that  when  his  son  and  other  members 
of  his  family  removed  to  the  Spring  Street  Church, 
which  was  up  town,  and  nearer  their  house  on 
Greenwich  Street,  the  son  recorded — ''My  father 
continues  at  Dey  Street,  as  that  church  is  in  need 
of  the  assistance  of  some  able  men."  Of  the  per- 
sonal appearance  of  Cornelius  Baker,  we  have  the 

346 


Dedication  of  Baker  Hall 

testimony  of  his  grandson,  who  writes — **I 
distinctly  remember  the  personal  appearance  of 
my  grandfather  Cornelius,  who  died  in  1868,  when 
I  was  twelve  years  of  age.  He  was  above  the 
average  height,  rather  slender  in  build,  with  a 
wealth  of  white  hair;  dignified  in  his  manner." 

Mindful  of  the  important  part  Cornelius  Baker 
played  in  the  beginnings  of  this  university,  grate- 
ful for  the  magnificent  legacy  of  his  son-in-law, 
encouraged  and  enriched  by  the  kindly  interest 
and  faith  in  this  university  cherished  by  his  daugh- 
ter through  all  the  vicissitudes  of  its  history,  we 
rejoice  that  this  building  is  to  bear  the  name  of 
Baker  Hall. 

The  committee  was  instructed,  however,  not  only 
to  build  a  building  which  should  bear  the  name  of 
Cornelius  Baker,  but  instructed  also  to  build  a 
Hall  of  Philosophy,  where  the  ideals  of  liberal 
culture  in  which  Cornelius  Baker  believed  might 
flourish  and  find  expression.  We  have  built  it 
therefore  for  Philosophy,  but  in  no  narrow  sense, 
including  with  Philosophy,  Political  Science, 
Sociology,  and  the  sciences  of  History  and 
Economics,  upon  which  Political  Science  is  so  de- 
pendent. It  has  not  been  our  intention  to  stretch 
the  term  so  as  to  include  all  that  counted  under 
the  term  Philosophy  in  the  days  of  Cornelius 
Baker — the  subdivisions  of  Mental  Philosophy, 
Moral  Philosophy,  and  Natural  Philosophy. 
The  accommodation  which  the  Hall  of  Philosophy 
offers  to  Biology  and  Geology  is  intended  to  be 
temporary;  and  these  sciences  will  withdraw  from 

347 


Dedication  of  Baker  Hall 

Philosophy's  all-inclusive  roof,  as  they  have  in 
the  larger  world  of  thought,  so  soon  as  they  can 
find  for  themselves  an  independent  home. 

And  yet,  as  we  examine  the  college  world  of  to- 
daj',  we  cannot  but  be  impressed  by  the  fact,  that 
the  great  task  for  Philosophy  as  a  college  disci- 
pline, if  not  for  a  Hall  of  Philosophy,  is  a  task  of 
inclusion  rather  than  exclusion,  of  synthesis  rather 
than  analysis.  We  have  been  busily  engaged  the 
last  half  century  in  parceling  out  the  field  of 
knowledge  in  small  sections,  where  every  part 
may  be  thoroughly  and  painstakingly  studied  by 
specialists.  One  by  one  the  various  sciences  have 
fenced  in  their  own  ground,  and  have  left  Philos- 
ophy's parental  roof,  building  for  themselves 
larger  and  more  richly  furnished  homes.  So 
rapid  has  been  the  expansion  of  knowledge  that 
the  modern  student  feels  lost  among  so  many  new 
and  extensive  buildings,  and  inquires  anxiously  at 
each  door — ''Is  this  the  home  of  Truth;  or  can 
you  tell  me  in  which  house  she  lives?"  We  need, 
therefore,  for  this  new  city  an  inquiry  desk,  a 
bureau  of  information,  and  a  porter's  lodge;  or 
as  one  college  president  has  suggested,  we  need  a 
Professor  of  Things-in-General,  large  enough  to 
fill  the  chair  which  Philosophy  once  assumed  to 
fill. 

Certain  it  is,  that  the  college  needs  to-day  a 
teacher  of  values,  who  w^ll  show  the  significance 
and  meaning  of  various  kinds  of  knowledge,  and 
wdll  attempt  an  answer  not  only  to  that  modern 
question — "What  knowledge  is  of  most  worth*?", 

348 


Dedication  of  Baker  Hall 

but  to  that  older  question — ''What  are  the  mutual 
relations  and  relative  values  of  thought  and  of 
action,  of  faith  and  of  sight  F'  No  building  on 
the  college  campus  therefore,  in  this  day  of  science 
and  of  science  applied  to  business  and  to  welfare, 
should  play  a  more  important  part  in  shaping  the 
world's  destinies  than  a  Hall  of  Philosophy.  The 
significance  of  the  American  college  itself  in  the 
past  has  lain  largely  in  the  fact  that  it  molded 
a  man's  philosophy  of  life.  If  the  college  of  the 
future  is  to  retain  an  important  place  in  our 
scheme  of  education,  alongside  of  schools  of  ap- 
plied science,  of  commerce  and  of  education,  or 
interpose  between  high  schools  and  schools  of 
theology,  law  and  medicine,  it  must  have  men 
qualified  to  teach  a  philosophy  of  knowledge,  to 
teach  even  a  philosophy  of  life ;  to  teach  not  dog- 
matically, and  yet  with  authority,  as  the  seer 
revealing  a  vision,  arousing  faith,  teaching  men  to 
believe,  and  believing,  greatly  to  dare. 

The  task  which  the  donor  and  the  Council  set 
the  building  committee  is  to-day  complete ;  and  as 
we  report  the  building  ready  for  final  dedication 
to  university  purposes,  we  express  the  hope  that 
those  who  teach  within  these  walls  may  ever  be 
reminded  that  the  windows  are  large,  in  order  that 
all  possible  light  may  enter;  the  doors  are  broad, 
open  to  both  East  and  West,  and  never  to  be 
closed  to  any  discoveries  in  the  world  of  fact,  for 
fear  the  rush  of  new  facts  may  smother  rather 
than  fan  the  truth;  that  the  building  stands  not 
isolated,  but  linked  by  the  colonnade  with  the  other 

349 


Dedication  of  Baker  Hall 

buildings  of  the  group,  to  emphasize  the  unity  of 
all  knowledge  and  the  oneness  of  all  who  seek 
after  truth.  It  stands,  a  sort  of  interpreter's 
house,  between  the  halls  both  of  other  peoples  and 
other  times,  and  the  Library — storehouse  of  the 
world 's  accumulated  wisdom,  on  the  one  side,  and 
the  workhouses  of  scientific  research  which  are  to 
add  constantly  fresh  facts  to  the  world's  knowl- 
edge, on  the  other ;  and  finally,  that  it  stands  upon 
a  hill,  for  the  purpose  that  what  is  done  here  may 
not  be  hid,  but  that  what  is  done  here,  and  done 
rightly,  may  give  light  to  all  that  are  in  the  larger 
household  of  knowledge. 


350 


RELIGION  AND  EDUCATION 

THE  College  Board  and  the  Presbyterian  col- 
leges of  the  United  States  rejoice  with  you 
in  this  coming  of  age  of  Occidental  College  and 
the  successful  ending  of  its  first  era.  So  signifi- 
cant has  been  its  history  these  twenty-five  years, 
so  full  of  promise  the  new  era  just  opening,  so 
cordial  the  welcome  of  your  sterling  president, 
that  it  seems  worth  while  to  have  crossed  a  con- 
tinent to  join  in  commemorating  your  quarter  cen- 
tennial. 

The  California  of  yesterday  is  more  celebrated 
for  religion  than  for  education.  The  religion  of 
the  missions  had  little  respect  for  profane  learn- 
ing. To  the  Franciscan  fathers  of  your  pastoral 
era,  as  to  many  of  our  business  men  to-day,  the 
whole  duty  of  man  might  be  summed  up  in  the 
words  work  and  worship;  a  sound  creed  econom- 
ically, if  success  may  be  measured  by  the  tempo- 
rary accumulation  and  increase  of  wealth,  without 
much  concern  for  the  generations  to  follow.  As 
one  of  your  own  poets  has  said : 

"Where  are  they  now,  0  Tower, 
The  locusts  and  wild  honey  ? 
Where  is  the  sacred  dower, 
That  the  Bride  of  Christ  was  s:iven  ? 


Address  as  President  of  the  College  Board  of  the  Presbji;erian 
Church  of  the  U.  S.  A.  at  Occidental  College,  Pasadena,  Cal.,  1914. 


Religion  and  Education 

Gone  to  the  wielders  of  power, 
The  misers  and  niinters  of  money ; 
Gone  for  the  greed  that  is  their  creed — 
And  these  in  the  land  have  thriven. 
What  then  were'st  thou,  and  what  art  now, 
And  wherefore  hast  thou  striven?" 

The  California  of  to-day  is  more  celebrated  for 
education  than  religion.  We  know  more  of  your 
great  educational  system  culminating  in  your 
great  State  University,  more  of  your  Leland  Stan- 
ford, more  of  Occidental  College  than  we  do  of 
any  cathedral  or  church  which  to-day  may  be  try- 
ing to  regain  for  religion  the  place  in  the  com- 
munity once  held  by  the  missions. 

Work  and  worship  were  not  enough,  are  not 
enough  to-day  to  perpetuate  a  civilization.  The 
God  of  the  pastoral  Abraham,  Isaac  and  Jacob  is 
also  the  God  of  David  the  statesman,  of  Solomon 
the  sage,  but  above  all  of  that  Jesus  who  lingered 
in  the  Temple  among  the  teachers,  both  hearing 
and  asking  them  questions.  No  son  of  man  rises 
to  the  full  dignity  of  manhood  who  has  not  some- 
thing of  this  inquiring  spirit.  It  is  this  inquiring 
spirit  which  has  built  your  colleges  and  universi- 
ties, and  has  revealed  you  to  the  world  as  sharing 
the  joy  in  existing  knowledge  and  the  desire  to 
know  more,  which  characterizes  all  those  civiliza- 
tions to  which  the  future  seems  to  belong. 

None  of  you  need  regret,  therefore,  as  you  look 
back  over  the  sacrifices  and  struggles  of  the  last 
twenty-five  years,  the  cost  in  money  or  even  in 
anguish  of  Occidental  College.     Certainly  the  Col- 

352 


Religion  and  Education 

lege  Board  does  not  regret  the  $30,000  which  it 
has  had  the  privilege  of  transmitting  to  you  from 
the  church.  As  you  abandon  the  old  site  and  to- 
morrow open  your  splendid  buildings,  you  and 
we,  counting  the  cost  and  not  unmindful  of  the 
sacrifices  of  those  who  are  not  here  to  enjoy  this 
celebration,  may  say  without  resers^ation :  '*It  has 
been  worth  it  all. ' ' 

You  have  outgrown  the  old  home,  built  with 
much  care  and  pride.  You  have  attained  major- 
ity, and  doubtless  are  saying  with  Paul:  '^ Forget- 
ting what  is  behind,  putting  away  childish  things, 
we  will  press  forward."  With  that  zest  for  the 
new  so  characteristic  of  our  glorious  American 
youthfulness,  we  would  avoid  at  all  hazards  being 
found  old-fashioned.  This  has  been  a  Presby- 
terian college  and  a  Christian  college.  Is  religion 
one  of  the  old-fashioned  things  to  be  left  behind 
as  the  college  moves  to  its  new  home!  Shall  we 
say,  as  they  say  in  Japan :  ' '  Christianity  seems  to 
be  authoritative  up  to  the  university,  but  he  who 
enters  the  university  rises  above"?  Even  in  our 
own  country  there  is  abroad  in  the  educational 
world  to-day  a  sentiment  that  religion  is  a  good 
thing  for  the  young,  that  it  is  perhaps  from  the 
politico-economic  point  of  view  even  a  necessary 
thing  for  the  rank  and  file,  if  any  respect  for  au- 
thority is  to  continue  in  our  civilization.  In  the 
realms  of  science  there  is  being  fostered  a  sort  of 
gentlemen's  code,  which  believes,  as  one  of  our 
eastern  university  presidents  has  phrased  it  re- 
cently, that  ''a  gentleman  understands  that  it  is 

353 


Religion  and  Education 

neither  necessary  nor  expedient  to  teach  to  the 
young  everything  which  the  experience  and  reflec- 
tion of  an  older  man  may  have  taught  him  to  be- 
lieve." We  are  reminded  of  the  esoteric  doc- 
trines of  India,  and  of  Rome's  augurs  going  about 
their  task  A^^th  a  wink  for  each  other. 

There  is  another  group  less  indifferent  to  the 
fundamental  truths  of  religion,  who  think  the  ques- 
tion is  simplified  if  we  define  religion  as  worship, 
and  say  the  schools  shall  teach  but  not  worship, 
the  church  shall  worship  but  not  teach.  The 
church  may  bow  dowai  like  the  heathen  in  its 
blindness,  but  the  essential  thing  is  that  it  bow 
do^^^l;  the  college  will  stand  erect  and  do  the  see- 
ing. 

Both  of  these  doctrines  are  insidious  and  per- 
versive. The  Lord  Jehovah  is  one  God ;  He  is  no 
God  of  Humbug,  but  the  God  of  Truth.  He  is  the 
same  God  for  the  scientist  and  for  the  college 
cook.  Democracy  is  already  doomed  when  its 
leaders  whisper  in  the  lobby  a  different  faith  and 
a  different  fact  from  that  which  they  declaim  to 
the  people  on  the  platform.  Granted  that  teach- 
ing must  be  progressive,  that  there  are  things 
which  even  the  Divine  Teacher  deferred  telling, 
because  His  disciples  could  not  yet  bear  them;  we 
must  remember  at  the  same  time,  that  He  made  no 
secret  of  His  intention,  which  was  to  send  the 
Spirit  which  should  lead  them  into  all  truth.  He 
acknowledged  no  harmful  knowledge.  With  His 
death  the  veil  of  the  Temple  was  rent,  and  religion 
and  all  truth  became  not  the  esoteric  possession  of 

354 


Religion  and  Education 

any  priestly  order,  but  the  House  of  our  Father, 
into  which  whosoever  will  may  enter. 

But  it  is  said,  this  is  an  age  of  specialization. 
Why  not  then  the  school  for  teaching,  the  church 
for  worship?  Will  not  both  then  be  better  done? 
But  specialization  may  be  carried  too  far.  Simon 
Stylites  on  his  pillar  carried  specialization  in  re- 
ligion as  far  as  any  one,  and  we  hardly  regard 
the  result  a  success.  No,  religion  as  we  know  it 
is  a  ^'way,"  a  method — to  use  a  pedagogical  term. 
He  that  pursues  happiness  loses  it.  He  that  seeks 
religion,  as  such,  withers. 

As  Winston  Churchill  said  in  an  address  in  New 
York  just  before  I  left  the  coast — a  true  religion 
demands  unity  of  the  soul.  We  can't  have  our 
religion  one  thing  and  our  business  another,  and 
our  scientific  beliefs  another.  Religion,  if  it  be 
true  religion,  must  permeate  and  energize  every 
department  of  life;  the  home,  the  office,  the  fac- 
tory, the  laboratory  of  the  scientist,  and  the  work- 
shop of  the  literary  man,  as  well  as  the  synagogue 
and  the  church. 

Whether  you  will  it  or  not,  religion  mil  go  with 
you  from  your  old  to  your  new  home.  Some  sort 
of  a  W eltanschaimng  will  permeate  the  atmos- 
phere of  your  new  buildings,  no  matter  how  good 
the  ventilation,  before  you  have  been  there  very 
long.  Religion  cannot  be  left  behind  in  the  mov- 
ing. The  earthem  vessel  in  which  we  hold  our 
treasure  may  be  shattered  in  moving  from  genera- 
tion to  generation,  by  some  iconoclastic  Luther  or 
Calvin  or  Wesley;  the  Ark  of  the  Covenant  may 

355 


Religion  and  Education 


^b 


itself  go  astray  or  be  profaned ;  you  may,  if  you 
will,  even  destroy  the  Temple  itself,  and  before 
you  can  speak  of  a  yesterday,  a  to-day  or  a  to- 
morrow men  will  again  be  pointing  their  steps  by 
something  Avhich  they  hold  supremely  dear. 

The  College  Board  but  reflects  the  spirit  of  the 
church  which  it  represents,  when  it  says  it  is  not 
concerned  for  the  form;  it  is  very  greatly  con- 
cerned for  the  essence.  We  want  Occidental  to 
be  Christian,  we  want  Occidental  even  to  be  Pres- 
byterian, in  the  future  as  in  the  past.  We  want 
its  faculty  to  believe  and  to  teach  that  men  cannot 
live  by  bread  alone,  but  need  every  word  that  pro- 
ceedeth  out  of  the  mouth  of  God.  We  want  them 
to  believe  in  the  sacredness  of  the  individual,  and 
to  teach  that  his  very  hairs  are  numbered;  and 
that,  therefore,  no  man  may  be  used  as  a  thing, 
nor  the  same  laws  of  economics  held  applicable  to 
wheat  and  to  the  laborer  who  raises  the  wheat. 
We  want  them  to  believe  that  God  is  knowable,  and 
to  teach  that  He  has  not  left  Himself  without  a 
witness,  and  that  He  is  revealing  Himself  to  the 
pure  in  heart,  who  seek  Him.  We  want  them  to 
believe  and  to  teach  that  no  calculus  of  earth's 
chances  is  complete  which  stops  at  the  grave,  that 
it  is  not  necessarily  only  the  fool  or  the  knave  who 
dies  a  failure  on  the  cross,  or  ruins  his  life  by 
fantastic  sacrifice.  We  want  them  to  be  Presby- 
terian enough  to  believe  in  the  dignity  of  the  sons 
of  God,  so  that  because  they  fear  God  and  serve 
Him  alone,  they  shall  be  without  fear  even  of  their 

356 


Religion  and  Education 

own  college  president.  We  want  them  to  be  Pres- 
byterian enough  to  believe  that  God  is  a  Spirit, 
and  that  worship  to  be  acceptable  must  not  be 
childish,  but  the  worship  of  the  intelligent  man 
wise  enough  to  be  humble,  must  be  bound  by  no 
formula  of  time  or  place,  neither  in  these  Cali- 
fornia mountains  nor  in  our  Alleghanies;  to  be- 
lieve and  teach  that  he  who  worsliips  the  Father 
must  worship  Him  in  spirit  and  in  all  the  fullness 
of  all  the  truth  which  his  Father  has  revealed  to 
him.  Ah,  if  we  could  have  but  one  college  in  the 
United  States  permeated  with  the  spirit  of  Christi- 
anity at  white  heat,  free  with  the  freedom  for 
which  our  Presbyterian  fathers  have  struggled 
and  paid,  there  would  be  no  need  to  speak  of 
Christian  education  or  to  talk  of  synods  or  col- 
lege boards. 

And  to  you.  Occidental,  we  look  to  work  with  us 
in  your  new  home  as  in  your  old,  to  realize  that 
ideal  we  have  in  mind,  when  we  speak  of  a  college 
as  Christian  and  even  as  Presbyterian. 

Then  may  it  be  true  of  you  as  of  the  children  of 
Joseph,  that  not  only  shall  you  outgrow  this  Mount 
Ephraim  which  is  too  narrow  for  you,  seeing  you 
are  a  great  people,  for  as  much  as  the  Lord  has 
blessed  you  hitherto ;  but  you  shall  be  able  to  say, 
"the  hill  of  the  land  of  the  Perizzites  and  of  the 
giants  is  not  enough  for  us,  but  to  us  shall  belong 
the  towns  of  the  Canaanites  and  the  Valley  of  Jez- 
reel;  seeing  thou  art  a  great  people,  thou  shalt 
have  not  one  lot  only. ' ' 

357 


THE  FORWARD  LOOKING  PRESBY- 
TERIAN 

THE  topic  assigned  to  me  this  evening  is  ' '  The 
Forward  Looking  Presbyterian.'^  In  the 
early  days  of  Pennsylvania,  Presbyterianism  was 
the  frontiersman's  religion.  It  satisfied  and  sus- 
tained the  new  settler,  whose  hope  was  in  the  fu- 
ture. It  encouraged  individual  initiative,  inde- 
pendent thought.  With  God's  book  in  his  hand, 
and  God  immediately  accessible  in  prayer,  the 
Presbyterian  walked  resolutely  into  the  future, 
awaited  the  coming  of  the  new  day  without  mis- 
giving, secure  because  of  a  firm  grasp  upon  cer- 
tain rock-ribbed  principles  tested  by  fire  and  per- 
secution in  the  years  of  leagues  and  covenants. 

We  miss  something  of  this  independent  fear- 
lessness and  joyous  confidence  in  our  ability  to 
deal  with  the  problems  of  the  new  day  as  they 
arise,  in  the  Presbyterianism  of  to-day.  There  is 
more  talk  of  holding  the  fort  and  standing  on  the 
burning  deck.  We  speak  of  the  God  of  Paul,  of 
Calvin,  of  Knox,  and  forget  the  teaching  of  Christ, 
that  the  fact  that  God  is  the  God  of  Abraham, 
Isaac  and  Jacob,  proves  that  Abraham,  Isaac  and 
Jacob  are  of  the  living,  not  that  God  is  a  God  of 
the  dead. 


Address  before  the  Presbyterian  Social  Union  of  Philadelphia. 


The  Forward  Looking  Presbyterian 

There  have  been  periods  in  the  history  of  the 
church  when  the  highest  conception  of  God  was 
a  God  at  rest,  a  God  of  dignity  who  had  under- 
gone the  labor  of  creation  and  who  rested  in  one 
eternal  Sabbath.     The  God  which  Jesus  knew  was 
a  God  of  whom  he  could  say,  ' '  the  Father  worketh 
hitherto,"  a  God  from  whom  proceedeth  the  spirit 
of   Truth  which  abideth  with  men,  not  a  little 
while  as  did  Jesus,  but  forever,  teaching  all  things, 
and  guiding  into  all  truth.     If  the  Presbyterian 
looks  forward,  into  the  future,  with  satisfaction,  it 
is  because  he  sees  God  at  work  there,  and  is  look- 
ing toward  God.     If  the  Presbyterian  could  not 
believe  the  doctrine  of  transubstantiation,  it  was 
not  because  he  did  not  believe  that  God  could  be 
present  in  the  communion  but  because  his  God  was 
present  in  so  much  besides.     Like  David,  alone 
with  his  flocks,  he  had  found  Him  on  the  Scotch 
hills,  in  the  stars,  suffusing  the  firmament,  where 
two  or  three  were  gathered  together,  leading  the 
fighting  clans,  consoling  the  stricken  and  the  dy- 
ing.    He  could  say  to   God,  with  the  Psalmist, 
God  my  God,  God  my  exceeding  Joy. 

This  consciousness  of  God  as  Immanuel,  as  God 
with  us,  of  God  as  real  and  present  to  the  individ- 
ual soul  without  formula  and  without  intermediary 
has  been  at  all  times  a  characteristic  of  the  Scotch 
Presb3^terian.  It  has  added  a  mystical  element  to 
the  life  of  the  stem  Presbyterian  little  understood 
by  those  who  looked  only  on  the  outside.  And  this 
consciousness  of  God  as  living  with  us,  as  thinking 
with  us  and  in  us  as  a  mind  which  like  the  human 

359 


The  Forward  Looking  Presbyterian 

consciousness  cannot  stand  still  without  disappear- 
ing in  coma,  has  made  the  Presbyterian  skeptical 
of  the  worth  of  all  tendencies  in  religion  which 
seek  to  run  the  molten  stream  of  religious  experi- 
ence into  fixed  molds  and  to  leave  them  there 
to  cool  and  to  harden  that  the  form  may  not  be 
lost  for  future  generations. 

Presbyterianism  which  began  mth  liturgies  and 
directories  of  worship  has,  for  the  most  part,  been 
too  busy  pioneering  to  make  much  use  of  them. 
An  organization  which  seeks  its  genealogy  in  an 
Apostolic  succession  rather  than  traces  its  rela- 
tion direct  to  a  living  God  seems  to  the  Presbyter- 
ian an  unnecessary  circumlocution.  He  clings  to 
his  eldership,  presbyteries,  synods  and  assemblies 
but  is  willing  to  discuss  whether  the  eldership 
should  be  for  life  or  a  term  of  years,  w^hether  the 
presbytery  should  be  composed  of  all  resident 
clergymen  or  only  those  with  charges,  whether  the 
synod  should  be  comprehensive  or  representative ; 
and  whether  the  assemblies  should  meet  every 
3^ear  or  every  four  years.  He  resists  any  attempt 
to  give  him  any  standardized  hjTim  book  and  re- 
jects as  essentially  irreligious  the  view  that  when 
the  church  closed  the  canon  of  the  scriptures,  no- 
tice was  thereby  served  on  the  Spirit  of  God  which 
was  to  lead  into  all  truth,  that  his  work  in  the 
world  was  done.  To  a  church  of  this  mind,  the 
forward  look  has  more  to  show  than  even  the 
backward  look.  We  have  no  single  symbol  which 
gathers  up  the  significance  of  the  forward  look  as 
the  cross  gathers  up  and  radiates  light  over  the 

360 


The  Forward  Looking  Presbyterian 

backward  look.  The  key  of  Peter,  the  harp,  the 
crown,  the  lamp ;  no  one  of  these  weighs  in  signifi- 
cance in  the  Christian  mind  comparably  with  the 
cross.  Even  John's  picture  of  Jerusalem  as  a 
perfect  city  with  a  perfect  city  life,  significant  as 
it  is  to  the  modern  urban  mind,  lacks  the  simplicity 
and  unity  of  the  backward  looking  symbol.  The 
future  always  labors  under  this  disadvantage  com- 
pared with  the  past.  In  the  religion  of  the 
Jewish  church  preceding  the  time  of  Christ, 
Abraham,  Isaac  and  Jacob  were  much  more  defin- 
ite figures  than  the  coming  Messiah.  The  law  of 
Moses  could  be  much  more  definitely  grasped  than 
the  exhortations  of  Isaiah,  ''Ho,  every  one  that 
thirsteth."  And  yet  the  two  factors  were  always 
present  in  the  Jewish  religion,  God  the  Source  and 
Creator,  God,  the  Redeemer  and  Messiah  to  come. 
At  all  times  and  in  all  ages  there  has  been  a  con- 
flict in  the  philosophic  world  between  those  who 
conceived  of  Being  and  those  who  conceived  of  Be- 
coming as  the  highest  category;  between  those  who 
viewed  the  world  statically  and  those  who  viewed 
it  in  terms  of  process  or  movement.  In  our  own 
age  it  w^ould  appear  that  science  has  thrown  her 
weight  with  the  latter  view  and  the  younger  gen- 
eration begins  to  think  of  what  is  to  be,  as  more 
important  than  what  is.  The  younger  generation 
is  particularly  interested,  therefore,  in  forecast- 
ing the  future  development  of  Protestant  churches. 
To  them  the  significance  lies  not  in  ''What  have 
you  done!"  but  in  "What  do  you  set  before  your- 
self as  worth  doing?"    Why  are  we  here,  means 

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to  them  not  what  historical  evolution  produced  us, 
but  what  picture  of  a  future  church,  what  vision 
of  efficient  service  to  coming  generations  knits  us 
together  in  common  fellowship  to-day. 

Prophets  and  seers  have  not  been  plentiful  in 
America  the  last  generation.  Here  and  there  has 
been  one  who  has  had  a  vision  of  the  world  evan- 
gelized in  one  generation.  Here  and  there  has 
been  one  who  has  had  a  vision  of  a  Christian  state 
characterized  by  social  justice,  by  intelligence,  by 
prevention  of  poverty.  But  they  have  been  com- 
paratively few.  It  has  not  been  an  era  of  cru- 
sades, with  all  eyes  fixed  in  one  direction,  with  one 
object  alone  worthy  of  attainment. 

Soon  there  may  come  a  great  change.  Even 
we,  in  the  United  States,  removed  as  we  are  from 
immediate  contact  with  the  great  world  conflict 
raging  in  Europe,  expect  to  share  mth  the  Euro- 
peans in  some  measure  the  burden  and  the  oppor- 
tunities of  the  new  era  which  all  believe  must  fol- 
low the  war.  Has  the  Presbyterian  church  medi- 
tated and  wrestled  with  God  as  have  the  men  in 
the  trenches  through  the  long  hours  of  the  night, 
and  is  it  ready  to  give  a  strained  sinew  for  a 
spiritual  vision  and  a  blessing  as  the  new  day 
dawTis? 

The  Presbyterian  church,  perhaps  more  than 
any  other  church  in  modem  times,  has  been  closely 
identified  with  political  theory.  When  the  scale 
hung  in  the  balance  as  to  whether  Episcopacy  or 
Presbyterianism  should  be  the  state  religion  of 
Great  Britain,  the  maxim  "no  Bishop,  no  King" 

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The  Forward  Looking  Presbyterian 

turned  the  scale.  When  the  scale  hung  in  the  bal- 
ance in  America  as  to  whether  there  should  be 
divorce  of  church  and  state,  the  support  of  Pres- 
byterians from  the  North  of  Ireland  desiring 
above  all  else  freedom  to  worship  God,  turned  the 
scale.  The  Presbyterian  has  never  been  very  suc- 
cessful at  forgetting  on  Sundays  or  at  church  con- 
ventions what  he  sees  and  hears  on  Saturday  at 
political  conventions  or  in  congress.  The  Pres- 
byterians of  the  South  at  the  time  of  the  Civil 
War  tried  to  bring  this  fact  home  to  the  conscience 
of  the  Northern  church,  but  without  much  success. 
Conversely,  some  Presbyterians  would  not  vote 
in  a  nation  which  left  God  out  of  its  constitution. 
The  forw^ard  looking  Presbyterian  therefore  will 
recognize  in  the  first  place  that  the  future  of  the 
church  is  bound  up  in  considerable  measure  with 
the  future  of  the  state.  Our  political  theory  as 
citizens  is  likely  to  re-act  on  our  ecclesiastic  theory 
as  churchmen.  We  already  see  signs  of  such  re- 
action. The  movement  toward  pure  democracy 
which  has  taken  place  in  America  the  last  twenty 
years  has  found  its  reflection  in  the  church.  The 
old  distinction  between  a  republican  form  of  gov- 
ernment and  a  pure  democracy  so  hotly  debated 
by  our  ablest  men  in  the  early  days  of  this  repub- 
lic has  ceased  to  have  very  great  significance  for 
the  average  Presbyterian  of  to-day.  So  fixed  in 
his  mind  is  the  doctrine  of  the  utilitarians,  that 
every  one  shall  count  for  one  and  no  one  for  more 
than  one,  that  when  assembled  in  congregational 
meetings,  in  synod,  or  in  assembly  he  feels  per- 

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The  Forward  Looking  Presbyterian 

haps  unconsciously  that  the  majority  may  do  what 
it  will;  certainly  that  the  majority  may  do  what 
it  will  in  all  matters  not  covered  by  specific  rules 
of  procedure.  Tliat  the  majority  favor  a  given 
course  is  sufiScient  warrant  for  action,  and  there 
seem  to  be  no  restraining*  principles  or  recognized 
concepts  defining  the  proper  sphere  of  legislative 
action  by  which  the  individual  may  shape  his 
course.  The  generations  which  reflected  on  the 
bounds  to  be  observed  in  "government  by  popular 
opinion, ' '  have  passed,  and  their  conclusions  have 
been  forgotten.  At  recent  meetings  of  the  Gen- 
eral Assembly  resolutions  have  been  passed  which 
"^dolate  the  Presbyterian  theory  of  the  rights  of  the 
individual  conscience  and  of  the  proper  functions 
of  church  government.  At  recent  general  assem- 
blies, resolutions  have  been  passed  without  regard 
to  whether  they  lay  within  the  proper  province  of 
the  assemblies  or  whether  the  church  had  machin- 
ery for  enforcing  the  resolutions.  In  other  words 
the  Presbyterian  church  which  was  distinguished 
from  the  Puritan  and  Independent  churches  of 
England  by  its  regard  for  institutions  and  for 
orderly  forms  of  procedure,  is  in  danger  of  for- 
saking its  middle  ground  and  going  over  from 
republicanism  to  pure  democracy.  It  prefers  the 
democracy  of  a  steel  pier  as  a  place  of  assembly. 
It  dechnes  to  fix  those  limitations  in  the  number 
of  members  which  would  be  essential  to  an  efficient 
legislative  body.  Swayed  by  orators,  it  votes  two 
ways  on  the  same  subject  the  same  week. 

As  long  ago  as  Aristotle  it  was  pointed  out  that 
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one  of  the  weak  points  of  pure  democracy  was  the 
fact  that  it  could  devise  no  place  for  the  excep- 
tional man.  The  argument  as  presented  by 
Aristotle  was,  if  the  man  is  exceptional  and  we 
admit  that  he  is  superior  to  us,  we  ought  to  accept 
his  guidance.  But  this  would  be  to  be  ruled  by  him 
and  not  to  rule  ourselves.  Therefore,  the  only  al- 
ternative is  to  expel  the  exceptional  man  if  we  are 
to  remain  a  democracy.  One  of  the  weak  points  of 
Presbyterianism  to-day  is  its  apparent  inability  to 
find  a  place  of  usefulness  for  the  exceptional  man. 
Only  the  man  that  does  things  as  the  majority  are 
accustomed  to  do  them,  only  the  man  who  sees 
things  as  the  majority  have  been  taught  to  see 
them,  can  be  tolerated.  Because,  if  a  man  be  cast- 
ing out  devils,  who  follows  not  us,  there  may  be 
some  question  as  to  whether  authority  rests  in  us 
or  in  God.  This  is  a  danger  which  threatens  our 
colleges  quite  as  much  as  our  churches,  the  ten- 
dency to  decry  the  exceptional  man  because  he 
will  not  follow  the  mob.  The  absence  of  a  pro- 
per respect  for  personality  may  perhaps  account 
for  the  fact  that  America  is  not  producing  her 
share  of  great  poets  and  authors  and  for  the 
fact  that  the  Presbyterian  church  when  it  wants 
an  exceptional  man  so  often  crosses  the  border  to 
Canada  or  goes  across  the  ocean  to  Scotland  or  to 
England.  When  by  some  mischance  the  church 
finds  in  a  position  of  influence  within  its  own  fold 
a  man  making  a  stir  in  the  world  because  he  is 
original,  criticism  and  badgerings  begin  and  the 
inventive  spirit  finds  it  easier  to  do  his  work  out- 

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The  Forward  Looking  Presbyterian 

side  the  church.  This  is  what  philosophers  in  all 
the  ages  have  recognized  as  the  tyranny  of  democ- 
racy, and  the  forward  looking  Presbyterian  will 
stop  and  ask  liimself  ''do  I  want  pure  democracy 
in  PresbyterianismT'  "Shall  I  lend  my  support 
to  the  'rule  of  the  majority'  idea?"  "Is  the  cure 
of  democracy  more  democracy?"  or  "Shall  I  de- 
fine within  somewhat  narrow  lines,  the  functions 
of  church  governing  bodies  and  seek  to  retain  the 
good  of  democracy  without  its  evil?" 

Another  question  is  one  which  has  been  brought 
to  a  head  by  the  war  and  by  the  clash  of  German 
philosophers  vnth  Anglo-Saxon  philosophers. 
This  is  the  question,  is  Christianity  a  philosophy 
for  the  world,  or  is  it  a  philosophy  for  a  select 
few  who  are  to  live  separate,  in  a  world  governed 
by  other  laws?  Are  Christian  principles  applic- 
able to  the  affairs  of  the  state  as  well  as  to  the 
life  of  the  individual?  Or  as  Aristotle  put  it, 
are  the  principles  of  goodness  the  same  for  the 
good  man  and  the  good  ruler?  Certain  prominent 
German  philosophers  have  stated  very  frankly 
that  in  their  view  Christianity  is  for  the  individual 
and  presupposes  the  state  and  the  powerful  nat- 
ural laws  and  instincts  which  operate  in  the  nat- 
ural man.  Did  not  Christ  himself  say,  "render 
unto  Csesar  the  things  that  are  Caesar  ^s"?  This 
question  has  been  brought  home  to  the  American 
citizen  very  sharply  the  last  year  in  the  discus- 
sion over  peace  and  preparedness.  And  if  Pres- 
byterianism  is  to  go  forward  triumphantly  it  must 
come  to  some  conclusion  on  this  debated  question. 

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The  Forward  Looking  Presbyterian 

There  was  a  time  when  a  large  part  of  the  Chris- 
tian church  believed  that  a  sharp  line  could  be 
drawn  between  the  affairs  of  Caesar  and  the  affairs 
of  God  and  that  the  affairs  of  Caesar  lay  outside 
the  more  immediate  province  of  the  Christian. 
With  the  long  continued  peace  which  we  have  en- 
joyed in  America,  with  the  inheritance  of  our  Puri- 
tan forefathers,  and  with  the  strong  religious 
character  of  our  people,  American  thought  has 
come  to  identify  the  two  spheres  more  closely  and 
to  think  of  a  kingdom  of  God  on  earth.  There 
are  those  who  say  that  this  dream  makes  us  in- 
eflficient  in  worldly  things  and  compromising  and 
spotted  with  the  evil  of  the  world  in  heavenly 
things.  For  myself,  I  cannot  see  how  a  church 
which  daily  prays,  **Thy  kingdom  come.  Thy  will 
be  done  on  earth  as  it  is  done  in  heaven,"  can  con- 
sistently take  any  other  view  than  the  view  that 
God  wills  the  ultimate  Christianizing  of  human 
society  here  on  earth  and  that  it  is  our  duty  as  citi- 
zens to  try  and  conform  our  political  activity  to 
Christian  principles  as  rapidly  as  we  may.  To 
my  mind  there  are  no  greater  difficulties  theoreti- 
cally in  a  Christian  state  than  in  a  Christian  in- 
dividual. If  aggrandizement,  if  self-expression,  if 
the  will  to  live,  if  self-interest,  must  still  be  the 
controlling  principle  of  the  state,  it  is  also  a  con- 
trolling principle  of  the  great  majority  of  Chris- 
tians in  their  business  life.  If  the  Christian  in- 
dividual can  substitute  service  for  aggrandize- 
ment and  find  it  an  efficient  business  principle  for 
the  individual,  doubtless  the  state  can  do  so  with 

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The  Forward  Looking  Presbyterian 

equal  success.  A  very  great  deal  hangs,  as  you 
will  see,  on  the  conclusion  which  Preshytorianism 
reaches  on  this  momentous  question.  The  whole 
scope  and  purpose  of  the  church's  work  will  be 
diiferent  if  Christianity  is  a  philosophy  for  the 
state  as  well  as  for  the  individual,  from  that  which 
it  will  be  if  it  is  merely  a  philosophy  for  the  in- 
dividual. 

Another  important  aspect  of  the  question  of  the 
church  and  nationalism,  regards  the  forms  of  the 
church's  organization.  Ought  the  Presbj^terian 
church  to  be  as  broad  as  the  nation,  as  high  and 
as  low  as  the  nation?  Ought  it  to  try  to  reflect 
in  its  councils  the  thought  of  all  the  states? 
Ought  it  to  try  and  include  in  the  individual  church 
people  of  all  classes  in  society?  General  Wood's 
strongest  argument  for  universal,  compulsory 
military  service  is  the  unifying  influence  upon  our 
national  life  of  requiring  all  men  to  do  some  one 
thing  at  the  same  time.  Cannot  Presbyterianism 
perform  a  larger  service  in  this  direction?  It  is 
unfortunate  that  as  Presbyterians  we  perpetuate 
the  differences  of  the  Civil  War.  Few  realize 
probably  how  much  unifying  influence  there  is 
merely  in  the  forms  of  organization  and  how 
forms  of  organization  tend  to  isolate  those  on  the 
two  sides  of  the  line,  so  that  the  leaders  of  the 
Southern  church  are  hardly  knoTvm  to  the  leaders 
of  the  Northern  church,  much  less  the  rank  and 
file.  The  Presbyterian  church  has  not  grappled 
effectively  as  yet  with  the  question  of  how  it  can 
make  itself  in  truth  a  national  church.     It  has 

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The  Forward  Looking  Presbyterian 

not  solved  the  problem  of  how  to  make  the  church 
boards  national  agencies.  The  Pacific  coast 
complains  with  some  truth  that  the  boards  of  the 
church  are  largely  local  affairs.  The  Forward 
Looking  Presbyterian  will  give  some  consideration 
to  devising  boards  and  councils  made  up  of  rep- 
resentatives from  all  parts  of  the  land.  It  will 
make  provision  for  leave  of  absence  for  a  year 
for  its  moderator,  freeing  him  from  any  local  duty 
so  that  he  may  belong  for  the  time  at  least  to  the 
whole  church,  and  be  free  to  swing  around  the 
circle  at  least  as  much  as  the  apostle  Paul. 

Again,  the  Presbyterian  church,  in  view  of  the 
present  war,  and  of  the  questions  which  it  has 
raised,  will  set  itself  with  new  resolution  to  the 
solution  of  the  question,  ^'how  can  the  Presbyter- 
ian church  do  its  part  toward  enlarging  the 
boundaries  of  loyalty,  toward  bringing  in  the  in- 
ternational mind,  toward  bringing  in  a  kingdom  of 
God  which  is  not  a  kingdom  of  Americans  or  Ca- 
nadians, or  Scotch,  or  Huguenots,  or  Reformed,  or 
Waldensians,  or  Hussites,  or  even  Armenians 
or  Japanese ;  but  which  will  be  a  kingdom  of  God, 
our  common  Father.  A  step  has  been  taken  in 
this  direction  in  the  federation  of  the  churches 
holding  the  Reformed  faith,  another  step  in  the 
World  Conference  on  Faith  and  Order,  a  more  re- 
cent step  in  the  Panama  conference,  but  what  has 
been  done  in  these  ways,  has  been  largely  the  work 
of  great  individuals  and  not  a  work  for  which  the 
church  has  officially  made  provision.  If  the  Cath- 
olic church  can  survive  the  antagonisms  raised  by 

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The  Forward  Looking  Presbyterian 

the  war  between  the  Catholic  bishops  of  Belgium, 
Germany  and  France,  it  will  behoove  Presbyter- 
ians to  look  to  their  foundations  and  to  ask  them- 
selves w^hether  they  have  built  broadly  enough  for 
the  kingdom  of  God  to  whose  coming  they  con- 
fidently look  forward. 

The  Christian  church  alone  holds  the  key  to  the 
problem  of  Internationalism  and  World  Peace. 
Will  it  use  it?  Will  it  teach  a  divine  doctrine  of 
sovereignty  ?  Will  it  teach  the  teaching  of  Christ, 
*'He  who  would  be  great  among  you,  let  him  be 
servant  of  all"?  or  will  it  take  the  view  of  the 
so-called  Chinese  official  that  Christ,  while  a  great 
spiritual  leader  of  individual  souls,  knew  noth- 
ing of  political  theory,  of  economics,  or  the  life  of 
the  state,  and  the  view  of  Bernhardi, — "Christian 
morality  is  based  on  the  law  of  love.  This  law 
can  claim  no  significance  for  the  relations  of  one 
country  to  another.  Such  a  system  of  politics 
must  inevitably  lead  men  astray"? 

Whatever  conclusion  he  may  reach,  the  For- 
ward Looking  Presbyterian  should  have,  at  least, 
as  clear  cut  convictions  as  these  upon  the  relations 
of  nation  to  nation. 

The  Forward  Looking  Presbyterian,  in  addition 
to  the  problem  of  democracy,  the  problem  of  na- 
tionalism and  the  problem  of  internationalism, 
sees  another  question  closely  connected  with  polit- 
ical theory  which  concerns  the  church.  This  is 
the  question  of  Woman  Suffrage.  Women  al- 
ready vote  in  a  number  of  States.  The  last  elec- 
tion showed  that  a  considerable  portion  of  the  men 

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The  Forward  Looking  Presbyterian 

of  Pennsylvania  were  willing  that  they  should 
vote  in  this  commonwealth.  Even  those  most 
vigorously  opposed  to  the  change,  feel  that  they 
are  fighting  a  losing  battle  and  the  most  sagacious 
students  of  society  believe  that  the  stars  in  their 
courses  fight  for  suffrage.  This  being  true,  the 
Forward  Looking  Presbyterian  asks  himself 
''How  the  church  of  the  future  will  recognize  the 
changed  relations  of  the  sexes  and  reflect  the  poli- 
tical equality  of  men  and  women."  Even  in  the 
past,  the  Presbyterian  church  has  ministered  more 
successfully  to  men  than  to  women  as  compared 
wdth  some  of  the  other  Protestant  denominations 
and  has  made  slow  progress  in  organizing  the 
energy  and  devotion  of  its  women  as  a  part  of  the 
church  structure.  We  have  many  women  teachers 
in  our  Sunday  Schools,  but  few,  if  any,  women  su- 
perintendents. We  have  church  boards  and  syn- 
odical  societies  of  women,  but  they  are  not  listed 
as  coordinate  agencies  of  the  General  Assembly 
in  the  annual  minutes,  and  although  allowed,  like 
a  wife,  to  hold  property  in  their  own  name,  may 
not  invest  their  own  property  without  the  consent 
of  the  finance  committee  of  the  men's  board.  No 
woman  is  now  eligible  to  membership  on  any 
board  nor  to  office  in  the  local  church  unless  it  be 
as  Sunday  School  teacher,  Parish  Visitor,  or 
Deaconess,  and  even  the  office  of  Deaconess,  recog- 
nized by  the  church  as  scriptural,  has  been,  for 
the  most  part,  neglected  and  not  organized  in  any 
systematic  way.  The  greatest  opportunity  for 
women  has  been  given  them  in  the  foreign  field 

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The  Forward  Looking  Presbyterian 

where  tlioy  are  permitted  to  hold  appointments 
from  the  Foreign  Board  substantially  on  a  par 
with  the  ap})ointments  of  men.  If  the  Presbyte- 
rian church  looks  forward,  it  must  foresee  serious 
problems  for  the  church  in  connection  with  the 
organization  of  the  religious  activity  of  women 
as  a  result  of  the  change  in  the  political  status 
of  women.  The  Department  of  Correction  in 
New  York  City  has  been  in  charge  of  a  woman 
for  a  time.  The  schools  of  Chicago  have  been  in 
charge  of  a  woman.  Only  last  week  it  was  sug- 
gested that  the  supervision  of  all  the  charitable 
institutions  of  the  State  of  New  York  should  be 
in  the  hands  of  women.  The  Young  Women's 
Christian  Association,  largely  through  the  help 
of  one  or  two  Presbyterian  women,  have  built 
themselves  a  great  organization  side  by  side  with 
the  Young  Men's  Christian  Association.  Even 
the  Christian  Science  church  has  made  a  crude  at- 
tempt to  solve  the  problem  of  the  sexes  in  the  or- 
ganization of  the  church,  while  Catholicism,  even 
in  its  earlier  days,  as  we  all  know,  gave  to  woman 
recognition  in  its  theologj^  The  Presbyterian 
church,  if  it  is  to  be  the  church  of  the  future  for 
our  college  women  as  well  as  for  our  college  men, 
cannot  afford  to  shut  its  eyes  to  changing  condi- 
tions. 


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THE  RELIGIOUS  ELEMENT  IN  EDUCATION 
—  A  NECESSITY 


w 


HEN  the  great  Jowett  was  Master  of  Bal- 
liol,  the  Jowett  of  whom  the  rhyme  ran 


"My  name  is  Jowett, 

I  'm  Master  of  Balliol  College, 

What  there  is  to  know,  I  know  it, 

And  what  I  don't  know,  isn't  knowledge," 

one  of  his  students  in  a  conference  on  Philosophy 
one  Smiday  said:  "Master,  I  have  been  studying 
the  arguments  for  the  existence  of  a  God,  and  after 
considering  the  matter  thoroughly,  have  been  un- 
able to  find  sufficient  grounds  for  belief  in  a  God." 

''Young  man,"  said  Jowett,  "if  you  don't  find 
a  God  of  some  kind  before  Monday  night,  you  go 
down." 

Now  that  was  an  instance  where  the  religious 
element  was  a  necessity  in  Education,  but  in  a 
little  different  sense  from  that  intended  by  your 
committee.  And  yet  Jowett  was  right,  because, 
whether  he  chooses  it  or  not,  consciously  or  un- 
consciously, every  man  who  is  a  student  at  all, 
every  man  who  thinks  to  any  degree,  has  a  God  of 
some  sort. 

The  student  may  be  a  devotee  at  the  shrine  of 
reality.  Trained  in  scientific  method,  taught  for 
years  that  inaccuracy  is  the  great  sin,  encouraged 


Address  at  First  Methodist  Church,  Wilkes-Barre,  Pa.,  1916. 

373 


The  Rcliij^ious  Element  in  Education — 

to  ili'iiy  liis  liopc's  ami  di'sires,  striving  to  rid  him- 
self of  old  i)recc)iicc'ptioiis,  and  personal  prefer- 
ences, and  to  wait  humbly  at  his  microscope,  at  his 
test  tube,  at  his  telescope,  for  the  reality  that  may 
be  revealed,  gradually  there  has  grown  uj)  in  his 
soul  a  religion,  the  worship  of  Truth,  the  abhor- 
rence of  error,  and  consciously  or  unconsciously 
he  worships  '*the  God  of  things  as  they  are." 

Or  consider  a  man  of  artistic  temperament 
strangely  stirred  by  harmonies  of  sound  or  of 
color,  filled  with  ecstasy  by  the  shadings  of  a  sun- 
set or  the  proportions  of  a  Parthenon  or  soothed 
in  blissful  rapture  by  the  cadence  of  an  Ovid  or 
a  Keats,  his  soul  revolts  at  all  that  is  distorted, 
abrupt,  unlovely,  it  seeks  out  and  basks  in  the 
beautiful,  and  consciously  or  unconsciously  wor- 
ships Beauty,  sacrifices  all  for  Beauty,  and  for- 
gets the  sacredness  of  human  life,  and  the  signifi- 
cance of  homely  joys  and  sorrows.  To  him  **the 
Glory  that  was  Greece  and  the  grandeur  that  was 
Eome, "  become  the  ''regions  which  are  Holy 
Land." 

Or  the  "Will  rather  than  the  Heart  or  the  Intel- 
lect may  be  the  dominant  force  of  the  man.  He 
may  have  discovered  that  when  his  will  comes  into 
conflict  with  other  wills,  his  will  can  override. 
He  begins  to  enjoy  the  satisfactions  of  power.  He 
looks  about  for  more  worlds  to  conquer.  He  asks 
what  are  the  most  effective  tools.  Why  did  this 
man  win  in  this  case?  Why  did  this  man  triumph 
in  the  election,  that  man  go  down  to  defeat?  Why 
was  this  man  chosen  to  a  fraternity,  that  man  re- 

374 


A  Necessity 

jected?  Was  it  because  of  his  check  book,  then  I 
must  reenf orce  my  natural  will  power  with  a  check 
book.  Was  it  because  of  soeial  graces,  then  I 
must  cultivate  social  graces.  Was  it  due  to  some- 
thing beyond  my  reach,  heredity,  blood; — then  I 
must  plan  for  my  children  what  I  cannot  hope  to 
win  for  myself.  And  he  worships  at  the  throne  of 
the  Great  God  Success,  and  sends  his  missionaries 
over  a  thousand  seas,  that  they  may  magnify  his 
power. 

What  is  it  to  have  a  God?  To  have  something 
that  your  soul  clings  to,  that  is,  to  it,  the  supreme 
realit}^,  that  is  alone  worth  while. 

Religion  in  this  sense  is  a  necessary  element  in 
Education,  because  whether  we  will  have  it  so  or 
not,  our  hopes,  our  desires,  our  valuations,  irre- 
sistibly arrange  themselves  in  order,  and  one  and 
another  are  subordinated,  and  one  becomes  su- 
preme. 

But  religion  involves  another  factor,  than  su- 
preme love  or  highest  valuation.  It  involves  sub- 
ordination. 

To  be  religious  you  must  be  able  to  say,  some- 
thing or  some  one  is  greater  than  I,  and  to  say  it 
consentingly,  not  rebelliously.  The  scientist  as  a 
rule  has  this  humility,  this  reverence.  The  unde- 
vout  astronomer,  it  is  said,  is  mad.  The  great 
physicians  feel  it  toward  the  mysteries  of  life. 

The  great  artists  have  it,  because  they  are  con- 
scious of  how  far  short  their  performances  fall 
of  the  beauty  even  which  they  imagine. 

The  man  who  worships  success  is  not  likely  to 
375 


The  Relis^ious  Element  in  Education- 


'•t) 


have  it.  He  trusts  in  his  own  right  arm,  his  own 
clever  brain,  his  own  purse. 

The  college  boy  is  not  likely  to  have  it,  because 
he  Is  in  the  first  flush  of  youth,  he  feels  new  life 
pulsing  within  him,  the  future  is  his,  he  knows 
nothing  as  yet  of  the  limitations  of  his  environ- 
ment, or  the  bitterness  of  defeat.  If  he  worships 
a  God,  it  is  likely  to  be  a  God  like  the  God  of  the 
Psalmist,  who  fights  on  his  side,  a  fellow  victor,  for 
whom  the  fight  is  the  thing,  the  lust  of  conflict; 
not  in  a  God  w^ho  gives  or  expects  personal  help, 
or  a  God  who  is  too  exacting  or  one  likely  to  lay 
much  stress  on  salutes  or  polite  recognitions  from 
brother  fighters. 

I  heard  tw^o  mothers  discussing  the  other  day, 
which  were  the  wiser  course,  to  let  the  young  child 
grow^  up  in  the  glorious  bravery  of  ignorance,  free 
of  all  fear  of  dogs,  ready  to  stroke  or  to  pull  the 
ear  or  tail  of  any  dog  it  sees,  protected  certainly 
in  some  measure  by  its  very  assurance,  or  to  teach 
the  child  a  mistrust,  even  a  fear  of  dogs,  that  it 
may  exercise  caution  in  approaching  strange  ones. 
We  who  have  to  do  with  children  of  a  larger 
grow'th,  hesitate  over  a  somewhat  similar  ques- 
tion. Shall  we  mar  youth 's  confident  belief  in  its 
own  powers,  and  so  cripple  somewhat  his  energy 
and  force,  in  order  to  drive  home  the  lesson  of 
submission  and  dependence,  or  shall  we  leave  this 
element  of  religion  to  make  its  appearance  when 
experience  demands  it? 

A  boy  becomes  a  man,  not  when  he  discovers  his 
owni  powders,  and  feels  his  freedom,  but  when  he 

376 


A  Necessity 

discovers  the  limitations  of  liis  life,  A  boy  may 
graduate  from  college  without  ever  knowing 
physical  hunger,  or  having  discovered  what  a  driv- 
ing force  the  necessity  of  having  food  and  of  hav- 
ing it  now,  may  be.  A  boy  may  graduate  from 
college  without  ever  having  found  himself  in  a 
completely  helpless  condition  or  even  having  ex- 
perienced the  sensations  of  one  about  to  drown, 
or  of  one  lost  in  a  fog.  A  boy  may  graduate  from 
college  without  ever  having  known  a  desperate 
and  unavailing  remorse.  And  a  boy  may  not 
only  graduate  from  college,  but  may  go  out  into 
the  world  and  live  a  score  of  years  without  ever 
having  forced  on  his  attention  by  the  death  of  any 
one  near  to  him,  or  his  own  serious  illness,  the  fact 
that  man  has  not  forever,  that  his  part  in  the 
great  glorious  universe,  whether  it  be  to  him  a 
universe  of  truth,  of  beauty,  or  of  power,  is  but  a 
passing  one  of  relative  insignificance. 

These  are  some  of  the  reasons  that  make  it 
difficult  to  give  religion  its  proper  place  in  col- 
leges. 

Did  you  ever  take  the  ordinary  hymn  book  and 
go  through  it,  to  see  how  many  hymns  there  are 
which  could  have  been  written  as  the  sincere  ex- 
pression of  the  soul  of  the  normal  healthy  college 
boy,  or  which  portray  attitudes  of  mind  which  you 
would  like  to  inculcate  at  that  age,  if  you  could? 

We  have  a  different  preacher  at  Lafayette  every 
Sunday,  and  about  every  third  preacher,  out  of  a 
collection  of  a  thousand  hymns  feels  driven  to 
select  "The  Son  of  God  goes  forth  to  war." 

377 


The  Religious  Element  in  Education — 

But  if  you  cannot  expect  that  feeling  of  depen- 
dence, of  the  need  of  help,  which  forms  so  large  a 
part  of  the  religion  of  those  who  are  younger,  and 
of  those  who  are  older,  to  be  a  very  large  element 
of  the  religion  of  the  college  boy,  you  can  secure 
something  of  the  same  result,  and  give  the  boy 
a  religious  consciousness  by  leading  him  to  see 
the  reality  of  inexorable  law. 

In  a  different  sense  from  that  of  Paul,  the  law 
is  the  school-master,  for  the  college  boy  of  to-day, 
to  lead  him  to  Christ. 

His  training  in  modern  science  prepares  him 
for  a  belief  in  inexorable  law  in  other  fields,  for 
a  belief  in  himself  as  a  subject  of  law,  for  a  vision 
of  himself  as  part  of  a  divine  scheme  of  things. 
As  his  knowledge  of  other  fields  grows,  he  begins 
to  question  whether  after  all  it  is  not  braggadocio 
to  declare,  *'I  am  master  of  my  fate,"  *'I  am 
captain  of  my  soul,"  at  any  rate  outside  narrow 
limits.  If  he  thinks  of  the  ordered  universe  of 
which  he  recogiiizes  himself  to  be  a  part,  as  a  uni- 
verse of  matter,  as  essentially  unthinking,  without 
heart  or  conscience,  as  a  great  machine  of  which 
he  is  a  cog,  and  of  human  emotion,  hope,  fear,  and 
desire,  as  efilorescences,  as  insignificant  in  the  real 
march  of  events  as  the  bleat  of  the  lamb  about  to 
be  slaughtered,  then  his  awakening  to  the  realiza- 
tion of  law  is  an  awakening  to  find  himself  a 
prisoner.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  he  awakes  to  a 
broader  vision  of  law,  a  vision  of  an  ordered  uni- 
verse in  which  the  hopes,  and  fears,  and  desires  of 

,^78 


A  Necessity 

men  are  an  essential  part  of  the  scheme  of  things, 
not  human  error,  and  weakness,  and  delusion,  but 
the  highest  fruit  of  the  orderly  universe  that  he 
knows,  then  he  is  ready  for  religion  out  of  his  own 
experience,  and  then  if  ever  the  educational  pro- 
cess must  be  ready  to  step  in  and  interpret  and  ex- 
plain and  illumine  the  minds  groping  after  God, 
and  supply  a  divine  explanation  of  souls  and 
things. 

Alfred   Noyes   as   the  young  man's   poet   has 
taught  this  more  and  more  in  his  last  poems. 

' '  Only  the  soul  that  plays  its  rhythmic  part 

In  that  grand  measure  of  the  tides  and  sun 

Terrestrial  and  celestial,  till  it  soar 

Into  the  supreme  melodies  of  heaven, 

Only  that  soul  climbing  the  splendid  round 

Of  law,  from  height  to  height,  may  walk  with  God, 

Shape  its  own  sphere  from  chaos,  conquer  death, 

Lay  hold  on  life  and  liberty,  and  sing, 

**  Glory  that  would  be  glorious 
Must  keep  thy  law  to  find  its  own. 
Beauty  that  would  be  beautiful 
Must  keep  thy  law  to  find  its  own, 
Might  that  would  be  omnipotent 
Must  keep  thy  law  to  find  its  own, 
And  mercy  that  is  merciful 
Shall  keep  thy  law  and  find  its  own. 
Thy  law,  thy  law  is  liberty 
And  in  thy  law  we  find  our  own." 

But  some  perhaps  feel  that  when  your  college 
379 


The  Religious  Element  in  Education — 

boy  has  awakened  to  a  conception  of  law  dominant 
in  the  universe,  he  is  farther  off  from  God  than 
before. 

When  every  shaking  tree,  every  bubbling  spring, 
every  fleeting  cloud,  might  hide  an  arbitrary  in- 
dividual will,  man  had  little  difficulty  in  finding 
a  God.  With  a  universe  immeasurably  extended, 
with  a  knowledge  of  impersonal  forces  and  rela- 
tions so  universal  as  to  overshadow  individual 
spirits,  can  we  still  show  God  to  the  immature  and 
bewildered  college  boy  I  Especially  can  we  still 
show  a  good  God,  can  we  still  show  a  moral  pur- 
pose in  the  universe,  can  we  still  show  that  right 
wins,  that  right  has  cosmic  significance,  that  "this 
universe  is  not  dead  and  demoniacal,  a  char- 
nel  house  with  specters  but  Godlike  and  our 
Father's"? 

This  is  the  great  question  which  religion  and 
religious  instruction  must  answer  for  the  college 
boy.  Huxley,  high  moralist  that  he  was,  took  the 
pessimistic  view,  you  mil  remember,  that  ''what 
is  ethically  best,  involves  conduct  which  in  all  re- 
spects is  opposed  to  that  which  leads  to  success  in 
the  struggle  for  existence."  The  college  boy  na- 
turally w^ants  to  be  on  the  winning  side.  He  wants 
to  guess  right.  He  wants  his  judgment  to  be  in 
accord  with  things  as  they  are.  He  is  willing  to 
take  a  knightly  chance,  to  go  through  trial  and 
suffering,  and  defeat,  if  need  be,  to  see  his  reward 
postponed.  He  does  not  reject  the  search  for  the 
grail  as  an  unreasonable  use  of  life.  He  is  ro- 
mantic.    He  is  brave.     He  is  sentimental.    But 

380 


A  Necessity 

he  does  not  want  to  show  ignorance,  he  does  not 
want  to  choose  wrong. 

Is,  then,  right  forever  on  the  scaffold,  wrong 
forever  on  the  throne?  Does  it  recompense  a 
man  hereafter  to  be  good,  or  are  goodness  and 
success  alternatives?  These  are  questions  which 
must  be  answered  for  the  student,  not  only  by 
the  formal  teacher  of  religion,  but  also  by  the 
institutional  life  of  the  college. 

If  the  Christian  college  is  not  willing  to  apply 
Christian  principles  to  its  institutional  life,  it  can- 
not hope  to  make  them  principles  of  action  for  its 
students.  If  any  man  is  qualified  to  serve  as  trus- 
tee no  matter  what  his  moral  life,  provided  only  he 
have  money  enough,  the  college  is  teaching  more 
forcibly  the  worship  of  the  God  Mammon  than 
could  any  course  in  the  curriculum. 

If  the  college  says  to  its  teachers,  hold  your 
tongue,  preach  no  new  doctrines  either  in  reli- 
gion or  in  economics,  lest  you  jeopardize  good 
gifts,  it  is  eloquently  teaching  a  doctrine  very 
different  from  the  doctrine  of  Jesus.  On  the  other 
hand,  if  it  says  to  its  professors,  we  will  main- 
tain you  as  teachers,  provided  you  teach  what  you 
think  is  truth,  regardless  of  its  effect  in  the  lives 
of  men,  it  is  a  very  different  doctrine  from  that 
which  says,  "it  were  better  for  him  that  a  mill- 
stone were  tied  about  his  neck,  and  that  he  should 
be  cast  into  the  sea,  than  that  he  should  cause  one 
of  these  little  ones  to  offend.'^ 

The  religious  element  in  education  is  a  necessity, 
yes.     But  you  will  not  succeed  in  teaching  a  reli- 

381 


The  Religious  Element  in  Education — 

gion  very  extensively  to  your  students,  unless  it  is 
a  religion  which  you  are  willing  should  take  and 
operate  your  institution. 

If  we  can  be  sure  when  we  organize  a  college, 
that  we  are  two  or  three  truly  gathered  together 
in  the  name  of  our  divine  Lord,  we  may  be  sure 
that  there  mil  be  God  in  the  midst,  and  that  all 
that  we  do  will  be  to  His  honor,  and  will  proclaim 
the  presence  and  the  practice  of  God. 

In  scholastic  circles  we  are  perhaps  prone  to 
overemphasize  the  intellectual  side  of  religion. 
To  think  of  religion  as  knowledge.  To  sum  up 
religion  in  texts  with  the  verb  to  know. 


'■&' 


"This  is  life  eternal  that  ye  may  know." 
"Ye  shall  know  the  truth." 

The  past  generation  has  undoubtedly  both  in 
its  national  psychology  and  national  theologj^,  ex- 
alted the  intellect  unduly  above  the  will.  What 
has  been  true  of  the  nation,  has  been  doubly  true 
of  the  college  student.  Agnosticism  is  the  appro- 
priate disease  of  a  religion  which  emphasizes 
knowledge  to  the  exclusion  of  conscience,  which 
forgets  the  categorical  imperative,  and  the  Thou 
Shalt  of  the  divine. 

No  education  is  complete  which  does  not  restore 
the  imperative  to  its  rightful  place  in  the  con- 
sciousness and  appreciation  of  the  student.  Com- 
mands admit  no  verdict  of  doubtful,  not  to  obey 
is  to  disobey. 

To  the  elements  added  by  religion  to  the  stu- 
dent's complete  equipment,  which  I  have  named 

382 


A  Necessity- 
knowledge  of  relative  values,  cordial  submission 
to  a  higher  power,  the  recognition  of  law  and  of 
the  binding  force  of  the  imperative,  we  may  add 
finally  the  mystic  or  devotional  element  of  re- 
ligion, or  what  has  been  called  the  practice  of  the 
presence  of  God. 

The  omnipresence  of  God  is  a  fact  which  nine 
tenths  of  all  students  believe  theoretically.  It  is 
a  fact  which  does  not  have  practical  significance 
in  the  lives  of  one  tenth.  Here  is  a  rich  heritage 
into  which  the  twentieth  century  student  can  enter, 
to  a  degree,  not  possible  for  the  student  of  the 
nineteenth.  What  religion  was  to  Enoch,  of  whom 
the  scripture  says,  ''He  walked  with  God," 
religion  may  be  to  the  student  of  to-day  because 
Philosophy,  Science,  all  the  trend  of  modern 
knowledge  make  it  easier  for  us  to  think  of  God 
as  immanent  in  the  world  than  to  think  of  Him  as 
apart  from  it. 

God's  favor  and  our  American  optimism  have 
led  us  to  catch  glimpses  of  the  possibility  of  the 
divine  in  human  affairs,  and  to  pray  with  more 
faith.  Thy  kingdom  come  on  earth.  The  teacher 
of  religion  in  our  colleges  to-day  cannot  do  better 
than  to  repeat  Paul's  address  to  scholars  that  they 
should  seek  God,  if  haply  they  might  feel  after 
Him  and  find  Him,  though  He  is  not  far  from  each 
one  of  us,  for  in  Him  we  live  and  move  and  have 
our  being.  This  then  is  the  supreme  contribution 
that  religion  can  make  to  the  college  man,  as  it  is 
the  supreme  end  of  liberal  culture.  The  end  of  a 
liberal  education  is  to  make  a  man  at  home  in  all 

383 


The  Religious  Element  in  Education 

the  world  of  knowledge  and  of  men.  The  end  of 
religion  is  by  making  man  sensible  of  his  divine 
origin,  and  being,  to  make  him  ready  and  able  to 
interpret  God's  voice  speaking  in  his  own  spirit, 
to  prepare  him  to  be  at  home  both  here  in  his 
Father's  creation,  and  after  a  time  also  in  the 
mansions  prepared  within  his  Father's  house. 


384 


THE  CHRISTIAN  COLLEGE 

THE  American  nation  is  to-day  taking  stock. 
It  is  performing  the  task  much  more 
thoroughly  than  for  many  years.  Stirred  by  the 
upheaval  in  Europe  which  burst  upon  us  so  un- 
expectedly, rendered  thoughtful  by  the  discovery 
that  the  America  of  to-day  is  not  identified  with 
the  ideals  which  hold  first  place  and  claim  a  first 
allegiance  with  many  of  her  citizens;  sobered  by 
the  realization  that  the  daily  press  is  a  very  im- 
perfect pair  of  spectacles  for  discerning  important 
and  significant  events,  the  American  has  decided 
to  stop  a  bit  and  look  around  him,  to  do  a  little 
listing  of  stock  on  hand  on  his  own  account  and  a 
little  figuring  to  see  how  assets  stand  as  against 
liabilities.  Preparedness  of  one  kind  and  another 
is  in  the  air, — not  military  preparedness  alone. 
Capital  and  labor  are  preparing  for  the  great 
struggle  which  they  foresee.  Newspapers  are 
laying  in  their  stock  of  local  color.  Politicians 
are  taking  in  a  reef  here,  or  shaking  out  a  reef 
or  two  there,  ready  for  the  breeze.  Speculators 
are  cashing  in,  for  their  own  benefit,  the  nation's 
vision  of  good  times  coming,  and  those,  who  like 
the  prophetess  Hulda  of  old,  dwell  in  the  colleges, 
interpret  to  those  who  inquire,  the  ancient  writ- 
ings as  a  warning  to  the  present,  holding  out  the 

Address  before  the  Ministers'  Association  of  Philadelphia,  1917. 


The  Christian  College 

cold  comfort  that  ''because  of  your  tender  heart, 
ye  shall  be  gathered  to  your  graves  in  peace  and 
shall  not  see  the  evil  that  is  to  come  upon  this 
place." 

To  a  world  thus  taking  thought  of  the  morrow, 
education  appears  as  important  a  factor  as  muni- 
tions to  the  general  in  the  trenches.  Education 
is  not  a  subject  of  interest  to  the  man  who  must 
have  his  results  to-day.  It  is  not  even  a  subject 
of  much  interest  to  the  man  of  wider  vision  when 
the  machinery  of  the  world  is  working  smoothly 
and  sons  are  found  prepared  to  carry  on  the  work 
of  their  fathers  as  a  result  of  the  established 
routine.  But  to  men  who  see  a  new  era  about  to 
begin,  a  new  era  likely  to  mark  as  great  and  sig- 
nificant a  change  in  thought  as  the  renaissance, 
the  reformation  or  the  French  revolution,  the 
future  looms  large,  and  they  ask,  who  are  the  men 
of  this  new  future,  from  what  schools  are  they  to 
come,  what  steps  are  being  taken  even  now  to  pre- 
pare them  for  the  task  which  awaits  them? 

As  a  nation,  Americans  have  always  believed 
in  education.  Whether  we  judge  by  their  words 
or  by  the  budgets  of  state  and  municipal  govern- 
ments, the  evidence  is  not  wanting  that  education 
holds  a  first  place  in  the  affections  of  the  American 
citizen.  Expenditures  for  schools  is  the  largest 
single  item  in  the  budget  of  all  our  great  cities. 
In  Pennsylvania,  no  less  than  in  our  great  west- 
em  states  where  the  flame  of  American  life  burns 
so  intensely,  the  state  gives  generously  to  higher 
education.     We  may  safely  say  therefore  that  the 

386 


The  Christian  College 

increase  and  dissemination  of  knowledge  occupies 
a  foremost  place  among  American  ideals. 

We  believe  with  Jefferson  that  ^'Knowledge 
must  forever  govern  ignorance,  and  that  a  people 
who  propose  to  be  their  own  governors  must  arm 
themselves  with  the  power  knowledge  gives." 
The  American  state  creed  begins  "I  believe  in 
Man,"  quickly  followed  by  ''I  believe  in  Educa- 
tion." But  to  urge  the  importance  or  significance 
of  education  before  a  company  of  ministers  is  to 
waste  time.  Ever  since  John  Knox  prescribed 
for  the  local  parish  a  teacher  of  Latin  side  by  side 
with  the  parish  minister,  Presbyterians  especially 
have  been  friends  of  education,  and  it  would  be 
difficult  in  many  instances  to  tell  whether  the 
school  or  the  church  would  claim  first  place  in  the 
affections  of  Presbyterians  should  occasion  arise 
to  choose  between  them. 

Taking  for  granted  therefore  that  the  interest  of 
this  body  in  education  in  general  is  quite  as  great 
as  that  of  the  average  citizen,  and  assuming  that 
your  interest  in  higher  education  is  somewhat 
more  than  that  of  the  average  citizen,  may  I  ask 
your  attention. to  one  phase  of  the  college  prob- 
lem? Colleges  have  a  deeper  significance  to  the 
thinking  man  than  any  other  form  of  educational 
enterprise,  because  it  is  from  the  colleges  that  the 
leaders  of  thought  go  forth,  and  thought  eventu- 
ally determines  action.  To  this  we  are  all  agreed. 
But  some  of  us  will  part  company  and  certainly 
we  will  all  part  company  with  a  large  number  of 
our  friends,  when  we  ask,  whether  we  can  mold 

387 


The  Christian  College 


to" 


the  character  of  a  coUege  or  so  shape  its  ends  or 
its  destinies  as  to  determine  the  Christian  char- 
acter of  its  product,  and  make  it  a  useful  instru- 
ment for  the  advancement  of  God's  Kingdom, 
without  thereby  injuring  its  character  as  a  college. 
Special  regard  has  been  paid  to  the  doctrine  of 
laissez  faire  of  recent  years,  not  only  in  the  world 
of  economics,  not  only  in  the  world  of  individual 
education,  but  also  in  the  institutional  world.  We 
have  been  disposed  not  only  to  leave  the  individual 
child  free  to  develop  his  own  personality,  but  also 
to  leave  the  institution  free  in  its  corporate  exist- 
ence to  develop  from  within  or  to  become  the 
football  of  circumstance  as  the  course  of  human 
events  might  determine.  In  a  time  of  upheaval 
and  change,  the  voice  of  authority  has  become 
strangely  silent  and  diffident.  We  have  wanted  to 
test  everything  in  the  light  of  our  own  brief  ex- 
perience, to  put  everything,  from  the  Ten  Com- 
mandments do^^^l,  into  the  test  tube  to  see  if  they 
will  not  yield  to  modem  reagents.  We  have  been 
disposed  to  reject  external  authority  not  only  for 
the  individual  but  for  the  institution. 

We  have  gone  to  the  extreme  of  individualism, 
we  have  been  disposed  to  throw  overboard  even 
our  belief  in  "children  of  the  covenant,"  our  faith 
that  "the  promise  is  to  you  and  to  your  children," 
at  least  so  far  as  institutions  are  concerned,  and 
to  say  the  history  and  antecedents,  the  blood  re- 
lations of  a  college  have  nothing  to  do  with  defin- 
ing its  Christian  character.  Individual  repen- 
tance and  confession,  with  works  meet  for  repen- 

388 


The  Christian  College 

tance,  are  the  only  index  of  institutional  character. 
Some  have  even  gone  so  far  as  to  urge  that  as 
ministers'  sons  are  proverbially  bad  so  the 
church's  colleges  are  the  last  place  to  look  for 
pure  religion.  Some  even  question  whether  a 
classification  of  colleges  according  to  their  Chris- 
tianity, supposing  that  we  could  determine  their 
Christian  character,  would  be  a  significant  class- 
ification to  the  father  about  to  send  his  boy  to 
college.  At  Oberlin  thirty  years  ago  no  student 
was  permitted  to  board  at  a  house  in  the  town, 
where  daily  family  prayers  were  not  maintained. 
Not  many  of  us,  however,  would  select  our  board- 
ing house  by  the  devotional  quality  of  its  prayers, 
rather  by  the  wholesomeness  of  its  food. 

To  most  of  us  the  distinction  drawn  in  Enghsh 
households  between  Church  of  England  and  dis- 
senting servants  seems  far  fetched.  To  most  of 
us,  the  distinctions  now  being  drawn  between  pro- 
German  and  pro-ally  servants  in  American  house- 
holds seems  far  fetched.  We  do  not  expect  to  taste 
in  a  pudding,  the  flavor  of  Scotch  Irish  Presbyteri- 
anism,  or  to  find  the  quality  of  an  omelet  affected 
by  high  or  low  Anglicanism.  We  sleep  as  com- 
fortably in  a  bed  made  by  a  pro-German  as  in  a 
bed  made  by  a  pro-ally,  and  find  the  radiator 
equally  hot  or  equally  cold,  whether  the  stoker  be 
German  or  Italian.  Evidently  then  some  char- 
acteristics of  the  physical,  intellectual  or  spiritual 
man  affect  the  particular  product,  others  do  not. 

Some  accordingly  argue,  there  is  no  Christian 
mathematics,  there  is  no  Christian  biology,  there 

389 


The  Christian  College 

is  no  Christian  physics.  What  I  want  my  boy  to 
gvt  at  college  are  the  facts ;  truth  is  truth  wherever 
taught.  If  the  faculty  are  concerned  for  the  in- 
crease and  spread  of  Christianity,  I  fear  truth  may 
be  perverted.  In  other  words,  the  college  will  not 
be  as  much  of  a  college  if  it  is  Christian  as  it  will 
be  if  it  is  just  college.  As  the  average  American 
prefers  to  have  public  schools  teaching  secular 
learning  without  religion,  rather  than  not  to  have 
the  secular  learning  for  his  children,  so  there  are 
many  who  argue  in  this  age  of  specialization  let 
us  have  colleges  that  are  schools,  and  churches 
that  are  churches,  but  let  us  not  confound  the  two 
lest  we  have  both  an  inferior  school  and  an  in- 
ferior church. 

The  question  how  can  you  ensure  the  Christian 
character  of  a  college,  must  be  answered  the  same 
way  as  the  question  how  can  you  ensure  the  salva- 
tion of  your  son  or  daughter.  Some  things  you 
can  do  to  this  end;  the  final  outcome  is  in  the 
hands  of  God.  If  of  the  very  Temple  itself  of 
which  it  was  written  My  house  shall  be  called  a 
house  of  Prayer,  it  might  be  said  but  ye  have  made 
it  a  den  of  thieves,  we  cannot  expect  to  find  the 
Christian  college  more  sacred.  The  spirit  of  God 
makes  the  college  Christian,  and  the  spirit  of  God 
is  like  the  wind,  it  bloweth  where  it  listeth.  It  is 
no  new  discovery,  therefore,  to  say  that  the  col- 
lege which  according  to  certain  external  charac- 
teristics would  fall  in  the  class  of  Christian  col- 
leges, may  on  closer  examination,  at  any  time,  be 
found  to  be  less  Christian  than  another  college. 

390 


The  Christian  College 

But  because  there  is  no  infallible  rule  for  assur- 
ing the  salvation  of  our  children,  shall  we  there- 
fore throw  around  them  no  safeguards,  take  no 
care  for  their  moral  and  spiritual  education,  but 
leave  them  to  develop  unhampered  by  us  accord- 
ing to  their  physical  inheritance  and  the  environ- 
ments in  which  they  are  thrown  ?  Shall  the  church 
merely  preach  and  leave  it  to  the  individual  church 
members  to  put  in  practice  the  teaching  as  it  re- 
lates to  education  in  the  same  way  in  which  it 
leaves  it  to  individual  church  members  to  put  in 
practice  the  preaching  of  the  church  as  it  relates 
to  business? 

Why  is  it  that  schools  and  colleges  are  any  more 
the  business  of  the  church  than  counting  houses 
and  factories?  Obviously,  because  the  church 
itself  professes  to  be  in  the  teaching  business. 
Because  it  claims  not  only  the  right  to  teach  but 
claims  the  subordination  of  all  other  teaching  to 
its  teaching.  Because  it  claims  for  itself  the  most 
important  branch  of  knowledge.  What  is  God?  and 
what  duty  does  God  require  of  man?  A  teacher 
itself,  a  teacher  which  claims  subordination  of  all 
other  knowledge  to  its  knowledge,  it  cannot  re- 
main indifferent  to  the  rest  of  the  educational 
process.  If  the  church  will  cease  appealing  to  the 
intellect  of  man,  and  appeal  only  to  his  aesthetic 
sensibility,  to  his  imitative  instinct,  to  his  love  of 
mystery,  to  his  emotions,  it  may  perhaps  safely 
ignore  the  college.  But  so  far  as  the  Presbyte- 
rian church  is  concerned  when  the  Presbyterian 
church  forsakes  the  appeal  to  the  intellect,  no 

391 


The  Christian  College 

Presbyterian  church  will  remain.  With  no  priest- 
hood, no  liturg}',  no  miraculous  sacraments,  it  has 
tried  to  live  solely  by  and  for  the  divine  truth  it 
had  to  teach.  When  it  ceases  to  teach,  or  to  be 
interested  in  the  teaching  of  its  youth,  it  will  have 
become  something  other  than  that  we  know  as 
Presbyterian. 

What  can  the  church  do,  what  can  anybody  do, 
toward  the  determination  of  the  kind  of  secular 
education  our  boys  are  to  receive,  toward  the  de- 
termination of  the  conditions  under  which  they 
are  to  receive  it  I  Why  should  the  church  as  such 
found  any  colleges  and  how  far,  having  founded 
them,  is  it  helpful  to  go  in  controlling  them? 

The  church  founds  colleges  first  as  a  part  of  its 
mission  of  enlightening  the  world.  This  is  one 
reason  why  we  found  them  not  only  in  America 
but  also  in  China,  Syria,  India.  In  the  early  days 
the  church  in  America  founded  colleges  to  pro- 
vide itself  an  educated  ministry,  and  still  the 
church  draws  its  supply  largely  from  its  own  col- 
leges. Secondly  in  a  broader  sense,  the  church 
founds  colleges,  because  the  general  law  holds 
good  here  as  elsewhere.  Give  and  it  shall  be  given 
you.  The  church  which  sows  education,  intelli- 
gence, leadership,  shall  reap  education,  intelli- 
gence, leadership,  whether  it  protects  the  crop 
with  a  mortgage  or  not.  The  church  which  casts 
its  bread  of  education  upon  the  waters  shall  find 
it  after  many  days  in  most  unexpected  places,  and 
at  most  opportune  times.  The  Episcopal  Bishop 
of  Bethlehem  found  it  hard  to  get  workers  for  his 

392 


The  Christian  College 

diocese.  He  started  a  hospice  under  his  immedi- 
ate care,  where  students  might  prepare  for  col- 
lege and  live  while  at  college.  Friends  of  the 
church  gave  him  scholarship  aid  for  the  men,  and 
he  told  me  last  fall  that  this  little  personal  hobby 
of  his  would  at  the  present  rate  soon  more  than 
supply  all  the  workers  his  diocese  can  use.  Not 
only  that,  but  he  is  himself  bigger  and  happier 
because  he  has  multiplied  himself  in  his  disciples. 
As  the  old  proverb  says,  he  who  pays  the  piper 
calls  the  tune.  Whether  the  relation  of  the  church 
to  the  college  be  legal  or  historical,  immediate  or 
indirect,  the  creature  will  bear  the  stamp  of  its 
creator.  A  college  is  first  of  all  a  piece  of  ground 
and  a  shelter,  loaned,  rented  or  owned,  secondly 
money  to  support  teachers  and  scholars,  while  en- 
gaged in  teaching  and  study,  and  thirdly  a  com- 
munity of  persons,  few  or  many,  teachers  and 
taught.  All  the  rest  is  incidental  and  accessory. 
The  character  of  the  institution  in  the  long  run 
will  be  determined  more  by  the  selection  of  the 
men  who  teach  than  by  any  other  factor  or  con- 
dition. If  the  church  is  interested,  therefore,  in 
insuring  its  Christian  character,  let  it  make  sure 
of  the  character  of  the  teachers,  .and  the  rest  will 
follow.  A  department  of  Bible,  important  and 
desirable  as  such  a  department  is,  will  not  make  a 
college  Christian,  which  is  pagan  in  its  department 
of  Greek  or  agnostic  in  its  department  of  Geology. 
That  is  one  reason  why  it  is  so  idle  to  talk  of 
maintaining  a  complete  divorce  of  secular  and  re- 
ligious education  in  America.     Though  the  word 

393 


The  Christian  College 

religion  be  never  mentioned,  by  virtue  of  the  warp 
and  woof  of  the  teachers'  character,  the  schools 
will  be  either  predominantly  Christian,  or  Jew- 
ish or  agnostic  as  the  case  may  be. 

The  business  of  the  Christian  college  is  not  so 
much  to  teach  religion  as  to  teach  science  in  a  re- 
ligious spirit.  The  school  is  not  a  substitute  for 
the  church.  There  is  something  subtler  than  a 
textbook,  more  effective  than  regulations  and  laws, 
and  that  is  personality.  The  personality  of  the 
teacher  determines  the  character  of  the  school. 
No  matter  what  the  subject,  whether  Cicero  or 
calculus  the  man  behind  the  teacher  shines 
through.  The  student  learns  to  admire  the  man 
and  admiring  the  man  he  forms  his  ideals  and 
opinions  according  to  his  model. 

And  if  we  can  shape  our  college  so  that  it  will 
be  Christian,  what  will  it  do  for  us?  No  one,  I 
fear,  knows,  because  the  ideal  we  have  in  mind 
has  never  been  realized  in  its  perfection.  But  we 
have  caught  glimpses  of  what  such  an  institution 
might  mean  to  us,  to  the  church,  to  the  world.  We 
should  see  it  combining  the  knowledge  of  the 
school  with  the  inspiration  and  enlightenment  of 
the  church ;  we  should  see  it  teaching  values,  chart- 
ing directions,  giving  prophets  and  seers  to  our 
generation.  Even  under  present  conditions,  if 
soldiers  are  wanted,  those  in  authority  look  to  the 
colleges,  if  peace  pilgrims  are  wanted  those  in 
authority  look  to  the  colleges,  if  the  Standard 
Oil  Co.  wants  men  for  China  it  sends  its  agent 
to  the  colleges,  if  the  National  City  Bank  wants 

394 


The  Christian  College 

men  for  South  America,  it  sends  to  the  colleges,  if 
the  Church  wants  missionaries,  it  sends  its  agent 
to  the  colleges,  if  we  would  promote  civic  reform 
we  appeal  to  college  men,  and  whether  it  be  a 
good  lawyer,  a  skilled  physician,  an  able  engineer 
that  we  want,  we  have  learned  to  demand  the  col- 
lege man  as  raw  material  from  which  to  fashion 
him. 

"Are  we  preparing  ourselves  as  a  nation  in 
intelligence?"  asks  Dr.  Coffin.  "Leadership 
among  the  nations  requires  an  unusual  amount 
of  brains.  The  late  Bishop  of  London,  Dr. 
Creighton,  told  his  countrymen  some  years  ago, 
'true  patriotism  consists  in  desiring  to  be  wiser. 
If  we  perish,  we  shall  perish  of  sheer  stupidity 
from  which  we  show  no  desire  to  deliver  our- 
selves,' and  he  held  up  to  them  their  two  favorite 
policies,  the  policy  of  Muddle  and  the  policy  of 
Dawdle."  "Divorce  religion  and  education," 
says  Josiah  Strong,  "and  we  shall  fall  a  prey 
either  to  blundering  goodness  or  to  well  schooled 
villainy. ' ' 

Some  way,  some  how,  some  where,  as  we  take 
stock  for  the  future  of  America,  we  must  make 
provision  for  that  ideal  college,  where  knowledge 
shall  be  exact  and  complete,  character  robust  and 
gracious,  and  Christianity  not  only  a  welcome 
guest,  but  the  ruling  spirit  within  its  walls. 


395 


A  NEW  WESTMINSTER 

IN  rising  to-night  to  respond  to  the  toast  of 
*  *  The  Founders, ' '  after  having  been  the  unwill- 
ing cause  the  past  week  of  a  good  deal  of  pro- 
test and  turmoil  among  the  friends  of  Westmin- 
ster, I  am  reminded  of  a  saying  which  was  cur- 
rent some  years  ago  in  New  York, — ''The  New 
York  Tribune,  Founded  by  Horace  Greeley,  Con- 
founded by  Whitelaw  Reid."  I  sincerely  regret. 
Gentlemen  of  the  Alumni,  that  the  peace  and  pros- 
perity of  Westminster  should  have  been  even 
slightly  disturbed  by  any  act  of  mine.  Though  a 
comparative  newcomer  among  you,  I  yield  to  none 
in  my  concern  for  the  welfare  of  Westminster, 
and  in  laying  down  the  office  of  president  at  this 
time,  I  do  so  only  because  compelled  to  the  step 
by  a  duty  which  I  cannot  disregard.  Any  con- 
founding or  confusion  which  such  an  act  may  occa- 
sion will  I  am  sure  speedily  pass  away  and  be  for- 
gotten and  I  ask  you  all  to-night  to  believe  with 
me  that  in  the  providence  of  God  before  the  time 
comes  for  the  change  of  administration,  Westmin- 
ster will  have  found  a  man  who  will  do  for  her  all 
and  more  than  any  of  us  could  even  have  hoped 
to  do. 

It  is  one  of  the  great  consolations  vouchsafed  to 

Founders'  Day  address,  Westminster  College,  Fulton,  Mo.,  Feb- 
ruary, 1903. 


A  New  Westminster 

the  man  who  works  for  an  enduring  institution 
like  a  college,  unlike  the  man  who  works  as  an 
individual,  that  however  brief  may  have  been  his 
work,  and  however  small  a  part  he  may  have  ac- 
complished of  that  which  he  has  attempted  and 
hoped,  his  work  does  not  stop  when  he  lays  down 
the  tools,  but  is  taken  up  by  another  hand,  and 
goes  on  through  generations.  As  we  meet  to- 
night to  celebrate  the  fiftieth  anniversary  of 
Founders'  Day  we  can  not  only  say  with  Webster 
''the  past  at  least  is  secure,"  but  with  large- 
hearted  faith  and  with  prophetic  vision  of  the  im- 
portance and  magnitude  of  the  work  in  which  we 
are  engaged,  rest  in  the  well-grounded  belief  that 
Westminster  College  is  too  great  an  enterprise  to 
be  dependent  in  any  considerable  measure  on  this 
man  or  that. 

At  the  recent  meeting  of  the  Association  for  the 
Advancement  of  Science  in  Washington,  the  Pres- 
ident of  the  Department  of  Physical  Science,  Prof. 
William  S.  Franklin,  was  discussing  the  definition 
of  Physics,  and  in  conclusion  said,  ''I  think  that 
the  sickliest  notion  of  physics,  even  if  a  student 
gets  it,  is  that  it  is  the  science  of  masses,  molecules 
and  the  ether;  and  I  think  that  the  healthiest 
notion,  even  if  a  student  does  not  wholly  get  it, 
is  that  Physics  is  the  science  of  the  ways  of  tak- 
ing hold  of  bodies  and  pushing  them."  However 
accurate  a  definition  of  Physics  that  may  be,  it 
seemed  to  me  when  I  read  it,  an  admirable  defini- 
tion of  the  college  presidency.  Prof.  Franklin 
thinks  it  perhaps  too  deep  for  ready  comprehen- 

397 


A  New  Westminster 

sion  as  a  definition  of  Physics,  and  as  applied  to 
the  presidency  it  will  bear  careful  study  and 
analysis,  but  I  commend  it  to  you  as  worth  bear- 
ing in  mind,  and  trust  that  Westminster  will  find 
a  man  who  is  an  adept  in  ' '  the  science  of  the  ways 
of  taking  hold  of  bodies  and  pushing  them. "  And 
since  to-night  as  Alumni  and  Trustees  you  con- 
front the  necessity  of  inaugurating  a  new  epoch 
at  Westminster,  it  is  well  tba^  the  completion  of 
the  half  century  turns  our  thoughts  back  to  the 
founders  of  the  institution,  and  that  we  are  thus 
led  to  consider  what  were  the  motives  and  ideals 
which  influenced  our  fathers  to  assume  the  burden 
of  planting  and  nurturing  a  new  institution,  to 
the  end  that  we  upon  whom  their  mantle  has  fallen 
may  comprehend  more  clearly  the  work  in  which 
we  find  ourselves  engaged. 

The  great  characteristic  of  the  Puritans,  Sen- 
ator Beveridge  once  said,  may  be  expressed  in 
three  words,  ''Build,  Build,  Build."  They  had  a 
genius  for  construction,  for  founding,  and  it  is 
true  in  general  that  the  man  who  is  born  into  a 
time  of  revolution  and  reformation  in  religious 
and  political  faiths,  or  who  as  a  pioneer  maps 
out  a  new  civilization,  and  is  forced  therefore,  in- 
stead of  taking  things  on  trust  to  think  them  out 
for  himself,  going  clear  back  to  first  principles, 
if  he  be  of  sufficient  intellectual  vigor  to  carry 
through  the  task,  and  not  become  stranded  on  the 
sandbar  of  doubt,  and  if  with  intellectual  vigor 
goes  moral  vigor,  courage  to  follow  where  truth 
and  duty  lead,  naturally  plans  his  life  on  a  larger 

398 


A  New  Westminster 

scale.  He  is  likely  to  reject  current  appraisals 
and  to  weigh  things  and  forces  at  their  true  value. 
Living  in  the  light  of  first  principles,  sub  specie 
aeternitatis,  he  is  not  content  with  the  dazzling 
baubles  of  to-day,  but  seeks  the  enduring,  is  not 
content  to  limit  himself  to  a  small  circle  but 
handles  by  preference  the  mightiest  forces  which 
operate  among  men. 

Some  such  consciousness  of  forces  which  though 
unseen  are  eternal,  shaping,  controlling,  directing 
the  destinies  of  men,  is  as  a  rule  present  in  the 
minds  of  men  like  the  Founders  of  Westminster 
College.  They  themselves  may  be  but  dimly  con- 
scious of  such  motives.  The  immediate  needs  of 
the  community,  the  needs  of  their  sons  and  daugh- 
ters, the  financial  benefit  derived  by  the  town  from 
the  location  of  the  college,  the  need  of  the  church 
of  an  educated  ministry,  these  motives  may  be  the 
more  obvious  ones.  And  yet  if  you  examine  more 
closely  the  men  who  do  the  large  things  for  educa- 
tion, in  nine  cases  out  of  ten  you  will  find  this 
constructive  mind,  this  ambition  to  handle  large 
forces,  the  desire  to  leave  one's  impress  not  on  a 
family  or  a  town,  but  on  a  state  and  country,  not 
on  a  single  generation  but  on  centuries. 

Our  own  age  presents  a  curious  paradox.  Side 
by  side  with  an  intense  materialism,  a  firm  belief 
in  money  as  a  good,  and  as  an  incomparable  power, 
lives  and  flourishes  an  equally  strong  Idealism — 
a  belief  in  the  power  of  thought,  of  ideas,  to  trans- 
form and  control  mankind.  It  is  this  materialis- 
tic age  of  ours  wliich  has  seen  Kitchener  attempt 

399 


A  New   Westminster 

that  most  idealistic  of  educational  enterprises,  the 
planting  of  a  college  at  Khartoum — within  the  dec- 
ade the  home  of  the  howling  dervish.  It  is  our 
own  age  and  in  a  region  where  we  should  expect 
to  find  materialism  rampant,  in  mining  camps  and 
at  the  jumping-olT  places  of  the  world,  that  w^e 
see  spring  up  a  scheme  of  education  which  some 
call  visionary,  and  some  the  fruit  of  consummate 
insight  and  wdsdom. 

Here  is  a  man  who  has  been  an  empire-builder. 
Who  has  handled  nations  as  a  child  does  his 
blocks.  AVho  has  changed  the  map  of  the  world. 
Who  did  not  scruple  to  use  armies  to  accomplish 
his  ends  when  other  means  failed.  And  when  he 
comes  to  die,  and  is  concerned  for  the  carrying 
out  of  the  great  dreams  for  which  his  own  life- 
time is  all  too  short,  what  instrument  does  he  call 
to  his  aid?  Not  armies,  not  commercial  indus- 
tries, not  brute  force,  not  wealth  as  such,  but  the 
apparently  ineffective  school  teacher.  The  great 
man  of  affairs,  the  man  who  has  lived  strenuously 
among  men,  admits  that  after  all  the  mightiest 
forces  in  civilization  are  the  forces  of  education, 
and  Cecil  Ehodes  testifies  by  his  will  that  his 
dream  of  world-wide  empire  and  world-wide  peace 
are  to  be  sought  if  at  all,  through  the  shaping  of 
the  ideals  and  lives,  while  still  in  a  plastic  period, 
of  the  young  men,  who  are  to  be  the  intellectual 
leaders  of  their  respective  races. 

We  find  it  hard  in  our  modern  civilization  to 
escape  from  the  overwhelming  consciousness  of 
the  greatness  of  the  world  of  things.    Nowhere  is 

400 


A  New  Westminster 

this  thought  borne  in  upon  us  with  greater  power 
than  when  we  watch  the  buildings  of  a  great 
World's  Fair  fill  with  the  innumerable  products 
of  industry  and  art  from  the  four  quarters  of  the 
globe,  and  yet  man  is  greater  than  the  things  he 
makes.  When  the  psalmist  surveyed  man  amid 
the  works  of  nature,  he  exclaimed,  ''What  is  man 
that  thou  art  mindful  of  him?"  but  viewing  man's 
work  in  such  a  great  exposition  our  minds  are 
directed  rather  to  the  second  part  of  the  psalmist's 
thought,  ''Thou  madest  him  to  have  dominion  over 
the  works  of  thy  hands,  Thou  hast  put  all  things 
under  his  feet,"  and  impressed  with  the  greatness 
of  man,  we  ask  that  question  which  Socrates  re- 
garded as  the  question  par  excellence,  "If  mak- 
ing good  shoes  is  what  makes  a  shoemaker  a  good 
shoemaker,  what  is  it  which  makes  a  man  as  a 
man  good — when  is  a  man  as  a  man  of  the  highest 
class,  what  would  be  ideal  man?"  Proud  indeed 
may  the  states  of  the  Louisiana  Purchase  be  of 
their  empire  building,  of  their  commercial  enter- 
prise, of  their  farms,  their  mines,  their  manufac- 
tures, their  beautiful  homes,  their  stately  public 
buildings.  All  these  indicate  a  citizenship  cap- 
able beyond  measure  in  those  industrial  pursuits 
without  which  the  most  splendid  civilization  is  im- 
possible. But  what  has  been  the  product  of  this 
territory  this  hundred  years  in  the  highest  spheres 
of  human  endeavor?  Has  it  had  its  share  of  great 
poets,  great  preachers,  great  statesmen,  great  au- 
thors, great  teachers,  great  prophets?  Is  it  not 
true  that  the  very  wealth  of  the  soil  has  so  lured 

401 


A  New  Westminster 

men  to  money  making,  has  so  accustomed  its  citi- 
zens to  luxury  and  ease  in  return  for  slight  expen- 
diture, that  unlike  rocky,  frugal  New  England  it 
has  hardly  produced  its  quota  of  men  of  great 
minds,  willing  and  able  to  wrestle  with  great  ideas 
and  to  penetrate  with  spiritual  eyes  heavenly  vis- 
ions 1 

How  and  where  shall  such  minds  be  trained  on 
these  rich  prairies  inviting  to  intellectual  indolence 
and  earthliness  of  life,  and  thought?  In  large  part, 
gentlemen,  they  will  be  nourished  in  the  small  col- 
leges like  Westminster.  Escaping  the  dangers  of 
riches,  idealism  will  there  abound,  the  life  will  still 
be  held  more  than  meat,  and  man  of  more  import- 
ance than  the  complicated  civilization  in  which  he 
has  clothed  himself.  Nourished  continually  by  the 
inspiration  of  the  thought  of  God,  and  by  the 
heavenly  wisdom  of  His  word,  the  eternal  verities 
will  not  be  obscured  by  an  omnipresent  opportun- 
ism. While  the  loneliest  places  in  the  world,  it  is 
true,  are  great  cities,  and  there  the  soul  which 
wishes  may^lwell  apart,  and  shut  out  the  world 
which  is  likely  to  be  too  much  with  us,  while  you 
may  be  a  hermit  in  a  city  like  Diogenes  as  well  as 
in  a  desert  cavern,  yet  the  city  hermit  is  too  likely 
to  be  misanthropic  and  cynical.  So  gigantic  and 
overwhelmingly  great  is  the  society  of  men  about 
him,  oblivious  to  his  truth  and  yet  happy  and 
successful,  that  after  honestly  battering  for  a 
while  without  effect  upon  the  impervious  armor 
of  this  world-wise  mass,  he  confesses  his  weakness 
and  impotence,  by  dipping  his  arrows  in  the  venom 

402 


A  New  Westminster 

of  satire  and  bitterness.  While  the  thinker  who 
lives  nearer  to  nature  and  in  a  simpler  society, 
who  sees  seed  time  follow  harvest  and  the  laws  of 
God  work  out  inexorably  though  it  take  genera- 
tions for  their  fulfillment,  launches  his  truth  clear- 
eyed  and  confident,  content  if  it  be  but  cast  upon 
the  waters  of  the  world's  thought. 

The  benefits  which  flow  from  such  an  institution 
as  Westminster  College  are  not  merely  those 
which  come  through  her  teachers  and  her  sons. 
There  must  be  counted  also  the  benefits  to  society 
through  the  creation  of  a  higher  life  and  interest 
among  her  patrons.  It  has  been  one  of  the  glories 
of  our  free  America,  that  men  have  been  free  to 
interest  themselves  directly  in  these  lofty  enter- 
prises, as  individuals.  When  the  state  as  a  state 
takes  them  in  hand,  while  theoretically  it  makes 
it  possible  for  a  greater  number  to  interest  them- 
selves in  the  promotion  of  these  higher  things, 
practically  there  is  danger  that  with  the  growth 
of  a  bureaucracy,  education  will  become  a  matter 
of  professional  mechanism  rather  than  of  individ- 
ual enthusiasm  and  faith. 

The  law  of  interest  is  a  reflex  one.  Not  only 
does  one  spend  in  proportion  to  his  interest  but 
his  interest  is  also  in  proportion  to  his  spending. 
There  is  danger  therefore  that  were  education 
purely  a  state  affair,  supported  by  taxes  which 
we  do  not  feel  directly,  an  interest  and  regard  for 
the  higher  purposes  of  education  would  not  bo 
widespread.  Just  as  interest  in  a  church  is  less 
when  it  is  a  state  church,  than  when  it  is  a  church 

403 


A  New  Westminster 

for  which  wo  pay  the  bills,  and  for  which  we  select 
the  minister. 

Gifts  to  education  are  like  mercy,  blessing  both 
him  that  gives  and  him  that  takes.  May  the  great 
exposition  then  force  home  on  the  men  of  St. 
Louis  and  Missouri  the  thought  as  to  what  is  to 
be  the  end  and  purpose  of  all  our  luxurious  civili- 
zation. Is  man  to  become  a  slave  to  things? 
Shall  wealth  breed  only  wealth?  Or  has  not  the 
time  come  to  set  apart  a  portion  of  this  wealth 
that  by  means  of  such  endowments , Missouri  may 
both  invite  men  within  its  borders  and  may  keep 
within  its  borders  its  own  sons,  who  are  willing 
to  give  their  lives  to  these  higher  employments 
of  the  mind  which  are  the  crown  and  chief  glory 
of  the  ripest  civilization? 


404 


GEORGE  TAYLOR— PATRIOT 

TO  get  into  the  Hall  of  Fame,  a  man  must  have 
been  dead  ten  years.  To  become  enshrined 
in  the  hearts  of  his  countrymen,  he  must  have  been 
dead  a  hundred  years.  It  is  not  without  prece- 
dent that  we  should  gather  here  two  hundred  years 
after  his  birth  to  do  honor  to  George  Taylor. 
The  statute  of  limitations  runs  against  the  law, 
**A  prophet  is  not  without  honor  save  in  his  own 
country,"  and  the  prophet  often  secures  a  tardy 
recognition  even  in  his  own  country  when  one  or 
two  centuries  have  elapsed. 

It  is  a  sign  of  health  in  a  community  when  it 
cherishes  its  local  history.  '' Remember  the  days 
of  old,  consider  the  years  of  many  generations," 
said  Moses.  The  community  which  looks  a  long 
way  backwards,  is  generally  the  community  also 
which  looks  a  long  way  forward.  It  is  worth- 
while then  to  turn  aside  even  in  these  strenuous 
times,  to  place  a  portrait  of  George  Taylor,  the 
Signer  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  here  in 
the  Easton  Public  Library.  Easton  has  not  been 
without  memorials  of  the  famous  citizen — the 
shaft  in  the  cemetery  was  unveiled  a  half  century 
ago,  and  his  residence,  that  quaint  house  on  Fourth 
Street,  is  still  carefully  preserved  by  the  Daugh- 

Address  at  the  unveiling  of  a  portrait  of  George  Taylor,  Easton 
Public  Library,   1917. 

405 


George  Taylor — Patriot 

ters  of  the  American  Revolution.  And  to  these 
is  now  to  be  added  this  portrait  authenticated  with 
such  painstaking  care. 

"We  all  wish  doubtless  that  we  had  a  better 
mental  picture  of  the  man  the  artist  has  sought 
to  portray.  The  outlines  of  his  history  are 
familiar  to  all  of  us.  He  was  one  of  that  great 
company  of  sons  who,  like  the  present  President 
of  the  United  States,  owed  his  philosophy  of  life 
to  a  ministerial  father.  Destined  for  the  medical 
profession,  restlessness,  love  of  adventure,  am- 
bition, or  some  cause  of  which  we  know  nothing, 
drove  him  to  give  up  his  studies  and  come  to  the 
new  world.  Too  poor  to  pay  his  passage,  he  ar- 
rived in  Philadelphia,  a  boy  still  in  his  teens,  in 
debt  to  the  ship.  Mr.  Savage,  proprietor  of 
Durham  furnace,  ten  miles  below  Easton  on  the 
Delaware,  needed  a  boy  to  shovel  coal,  and  was 
glad  to  pay  the  passage  money,  and  take  the  boy 
under  contract  to  work  out  the  sum.  The  Irish 
boy  must  have  ''had  a  way  with  him,"  for  he  soon 
became  clerk  of  the  works,  and  when  Mr.  Savage 
died  a  few  years  later  in  1738,  the  young  appren- 
tice of  23  married  the  widow,  and  as  manager  of 
the  furnaces  rose  to  a  position  of  responsibility 
and  prominence  in  the  community.  Later,  he 
bought  a  farm  at  what  is  now  Catasauqua,  but 
soon  sold  it  and  settled  in  Easton.  He  handled 
the  moneys  for  the  erection  of  the  Court  House, 
was  made  a  Justice  of  the  Peace,  was  chosen  to 
represent  the  county  in  the  Provincial  Assembly. 
We   know   little    of   his    personal   character.     A 

406 


George  Taylor — Patriot 

signer  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  he  was 
a  slave  owner  and  did  not  hesitate  to  sell  a 
crippled  slave  for  $75.  After  the  death  of  his 
wife,  he  took  his  housekeeper  for  his  mistress, 
and  when  he  died  divided  his  estate  equally  be- 
tween his  legitimate  and  illegitimate  heirs.  He 
was  reputed  a  fine  man  and  a  furious  Whig.  He 
had  courage,  he  had  foresight,  he  had  a  lively 
sense  of  justice.  Nothing  perhaps  reveals  his 
character  more  clearly  than  the  remonstrance  he 
addressed  to  the  Governor  of  Pennsylvania  be- 
cause no  steps  were  taken  to  punish  those  guilty 
of  the  massacre  of  a  number  of  Indians  in  1768. 
"There  is  a  manifest  failure  to  justice  some- 
where," said  the  Committee.  "It  must  be  either 
from  debility  or  inexcusable  neglect  in  the  execu- 
tive part  of  the  government  to  put  their  laws  in 
execution. ' '  What  seemed  a  presumptuous  act  in 
peace  time  even  for  a  man  of  52,  and  doubtless  an 
unpopular  one,  convinced  all  that  he  was  just  the 
man  in  1777  to  try  and  negotiate  a  treaty  with 
the  Indians  to  offset  the  attempt  of  the  English 
to  use  them  in  the  Revolution.  And  he  sat  as  one 
of  the  Commissioners  in  the  old  Third  St.  Church, 
among  the  braves  for  that  purpose.  He  had  fore- 
sight. When  a  member  of  the  Provincial  Assem- 
bly, he  was  made  a  member  of  the  Committee  on 
Defense,  and  he  did  not  wait  until  war  was  de- 
clared, and  three  or  four  months  after,  before 
urging  the  ordering  of  cannon  balls,  and  the  drill- 
ing of  men.  If  he  had  lived  in  our  day,  he  would 
doubtless  have  been  charged  as  a  munitions  maker, 

407 


George  Taylor — Patriot 

with  favoring  war  for  his  own  profit.  He  had,  in- 
deed, at  first  some  profitable  government  con- 
tracts, but  at  that  time  he  was  only  a  partner  in 
the  business,  and  the  other  partner  and  owner  of 
the  property  decided  for  the  Tory  cause,  and  the 
furnace  was  sequestered  by  the  Government,  and 
Taylor  lost  his  chance  of  a  fortune. 

We  do  not  know  how  much  he  had  to  do  with 
swinging  sentiment  in  Pennsylvania  in  favor  of  a 
break  with  England.  He  was  not  a  member  of 
Congress  on  July  2,  1776,  when  the  Declaration  of 
Independence  was  passed,  and  Pennsylvania  was 
swung  into  the  affirmative  by  only  a  narrow 
margin,  but  before  the  Declaration  had  been  en- 
grossed and  was  ready  for  the  complete  signatures 
in  AugTist,  George  Taylor  had  been  elected,  and 
was  ready  to  add  his  name,  and  risk  his  neck  for 
Independence.  And  he  signed  the  famous  paper, 
as  a  late  comer,  with  a  small  modest  signature 
down  in  the  lower  right  hand  corner. 

We  know  little  of  the  part  he  played  in  the 
Revolution.  He  w^as  already  a  man  of  60  when  he 
signed  the  Declaration,  but  he  was  not  too  old  to 
act  as  a  signal  officer  or  intelligence  officer  of 
the  Government,  and  keep  watch  of  the  British 
fleet  over  in  New  Jersey.  He  did  not  live  to  see 
the  Revolution  crowned  by  success  by  the  sur- 
render of  Cornwallis,  but  died  in  1781  at  the  age 
of  65,  having  already  outlived  both  wife  and  son. 

It  is  a  strange  hour  for  us  to  live  again  the 
scenes  of  that  Declaration.  The  traditional  atti- 
tude toward  England,  in  w^hich  we  were  reared, 

408 


George  Taylor — Patriot 

has  given  place,  under  the  compulsions  of  a  com- 
mon menace,  to  the  closest  and  friendliest  rela- 
tions. Unity,  not  independence,  is  the  watchword 
of  the  hour.  Any  fellow  Irishman  of  George 
Taylor's  who  to-day  should  raise  his  voice  against 
England's  King,  would  at  once  be  mobbed  as  un- 
patriotic. We  are  rather  glad  that  Congress 
would  not  adopt  Jefferson's  original  draft  of  the 
Declaration  which  spoke  of  the  last  stab  given  to 
expiring  affection,  and  the  duty  of  forgetting  all 
love  to  our  unfeeling  brethren  in  England. 

And  yet  there  are  points  of  similarity  between 
the  war  of  to-day  and  that  of  1776  against  the 
Hanoverian  King.  As  Trevelyan  says,  "Save 
and  except  for  the  system  of  personal  government, 
which  George  the  Third  had  laboriously  built  up 
ever  since  1760  Americans  and  Englishmen  would 
not  have  been  slaughtering  each  other  in  1776." 
The  King's  policy,  like  the  Kaiser's,  caused  the 
war,  the  King,  like  the  Kaiser,  kept  it  going  long 
after  everybody  except  himself  was  weary  of  it, 
and  in  1782  that  war  was  terminated  against  his 
will,  as  this  war  will  be  against  the  will  of  the 
Kaiser,  by  nothing  except  a  peremptory  injunction 
from  the  English  people,  who  if  they  had  been 
properly  represented  in  Parliament,  as  in  the  case 
of  the  German  people  to-day,  would  have  brought 
it  to  an  end  long  before. 

There  was  as  great  difference  of  opinion  in  this 
country  as  to  the  wisdom  of  the  Declaration  of  In- 
dependence, as  there  was  as  to  the  wisdom  of  the 
declaration  of  war  against  Germany.     Dr.  Wither- 

409 


George  Taylor — Patriot 

spoon,  of  Princeton,  said  then,  as  many  say  now, 
that  the  country  was  not  only  ripe  for  Independ- 
ence, but  was  in  danger  of  becoming  rotten  for  it. 
The  country  was  so  long  making  up  its  mind  that 
the  very  day  John  Adams  made  the  decisive 
speech,  which  caused  him  to  be  hailed  as  the  Atlas 
of  Independence,  he  wrote  a  letter  to  Samuel 
Chase,  describing  the  time  spent  in  the  debate  as 
wasted,  because  nothing  was  said  but  what  had 
been  repeated  and  hackneyed  in  that  room  a  hun- 
dred times  over  for  six  months.  The  arguments 
for  Independence  which  had  weighed  with  the  peo- 
ple were  not  lofty,  ideahstic  or  theoretical.  As 
the  historian  says,  "there  was  one  Tom  Paine 
who  knew  if  men  are  to  fight  to  the  death,  it  must 
be  for  reasons  which  all  can  understand,  and  in 
the  name  of  Common  Sense  he  argued  that  Amer- 
ica would  flourish  as  much  and  probably  much 
more  if  no  European  power  had  anything  to  do 
with  her  Government.  She  gained  no  profit  from 
the  English  connection  and  she  suffered  in  her 
dignity.  A  greater  absurdity  could  not  be  con- 
ceived than  three  million  people  running  to  their 
sea  coast  every  time  a  ship  arrived  from  London, 
to  know  what  portion  of  liberty  they  should  en- 
joy. The  period  of  debate  is  closed.  Arms 
in  the  last  recourse  must  decide  the  contest.  A 
new  era  for  politics  is  struck.  A  new  method  of 
thinking  has  arisen.  All  plans  and  proposals  prior 
to  that  nineteenth  of  April,  when  the  embattled 
farmers  stood  at  Lexington,  are  like  Almanacs  of 
last  year." 

410 


George  Taylor — Patriot 

We  have  no  Tom  Paine  to  put  this  war  of  ours 
into  plain  English — no  engrossed  parchment  for 
prominent  Rotarians  to  sign,  except  Liberty  Bond 
subscriptions,  and  Red  Cross  memberships,  and 
here  and  there  an  enlistment  card.  But  truths 
outlast  the  centuries.  If  Independence  was  worth 
fighting  for  then,  it  is  worth  fighting  for  now.  If 
it  was  true  then,  that  all  men  are  bom  free  and 
equal,  and  are  endowed  with  certain  inalienable 
rights  by  the  Creator,  then  it  is  true  now,  and  no 
Kaiser  has  the  right  to  use  men  against  their 
own  best  interests  for  his  imperialistic  purposes. 
If  it  was  true  then,  as  Lafayette  declared  with  the 
approval  of  George  Washington  in  a  later  Declara- 
tion of  Independence  that  he  drew  up,  that  'Hhere 
are  natural  rights  so  inherent  in  every  man's  ex- 
istence that  all  society  united  has  not  the  right  of 
depriving  him  of  them,  among  them  liberty  of 
opinion  and  the  communication  of  thought  in  every 
possible  manner,"  then  it  is  true  to-day,  and  Dem- 
ocracy no  more  than  the  Kaiser  can  be  justified 
when  it  violates  inalienable  rights  on  the  plea  of 
military  necessity. 

We  do  well  to  celebrate  George  Taylor.  He 
was  probably  regarded  as  a  rather  wild  and  con- 
tumacious Irishman  in  his  day,  but  his  faith  in  a 
greater  freedom  for  men  was  justified  by  the 
event.  We  shall  do  well  to  profit  by  his  example, 
to  remind  ourselves  that  the  obvious  is  rarely  the 
right  course,  that  easy  going  compromise  in  high 
places  often  fails  to  do  even  handed  justice,  and 
deserves  rebuke,  that  docility  to  constituted  gov- 

411 


George  Taylor — Patriot 

criimont  is  not  necessarily  a  virtue,  but  that  for 
the  great  privileges  of  freedom  of  speech  and  ac- 
tion, whether  it  be  freedom  from  the  outrageous 
interference  of  a  Kaiser,  from  the  thoughtless 
tyranny  of  democratic  majorities,  or  from  the  in- 
solent presumption  of  well  organized  minorities 
it  is  praiseworthy  to  risk  reputation  and  life  it- 
self. 

When  the  Jubilee  of  Independence  was  cele- 
brated July  4,  1826,  the  year  of  Lafayette's  visit 
and  of  the  founding  of  the  college  in  his  honor, 
they  tried  to  arrange  a  meeting  of  the  two  surviv- 
ing founders  of  the  Republic,  John  Adams  and 
Thomas  Jefferson,  but  the  meeting  was  not  in  this 
land  of  freedom  for  which  they  had  done  so  much, 
but  on  that  glorious  Fourth  those  two  heroes  both 
tasted  for  the  first  time  the  free  air  of  that  other 
country,  where  the  whole  truth  makes  men  free 
indeed,  and  they  need  no  light,  not  even  Liberty's 
torch,  to  enlighten  their  w^orld. 

But  before  John  Adams  set  out  for  that  coun- 
try, they  asked  him  for  a  toast  that  they  might 
offer  at  the  Fourth  of  July  banquet.  * '  I  will  give 
you,"  said  he,  ''Independence  forever."  ''Will 
you  not  add  something  to  it?"  he  was  asked,  and 
the  noble  old  statesman  replied,  "Not  a  word." 
To-night  in  the  midst  of  a  world  war  of  independ- 
ence, and  in  honor  of  George  Taylor,  and  I  am 
sure,  with  his  approval,  could  this  portrait  speak, 
I  give  you  the  same  toast  and  battle  cry,  "Inde- 
pendence forever!" 


412 


THE  LESSON  OF  VALLEY  FORGE 

PERHAPS  no  picture  of  the  Revolution  is  more 
firmly  fixed  in  the  minds  of  the  American 
people  than  the  picture  of  Valley  Forge  in  that 
cruel  winter  of  1778. 

Whether  it  is  because,  as  Trevelyan  suggests, 
nations,  like  readers  of  fiction,  love  a  sad  story 
which  ends  happily, — or  because  all  nations  de- 
mand something  of  personal  asceticism  in  their 
heroes, — or  because  Valley  Forge  was  the  crisis 
in  the  career  of  that  great  general  whose  fame 
gathers  luster  with  the  passing  years,  and  who 
remains  to-day  for  all  American,  first  in  war,  first 
in  peace,  and  first  in  the  hearts  of  his  country- 
men— I  shall  not  attempt  to  say.  In  any  event 
this  fair  hillside  beside  the  charming  Schuylkill, 
which  borrowed  in  those  early  days  a  name  from 
the  local  foundry,  has  become  a  world  famous 
shrine.  A  character  was  hammered  out  on  the  an- 
vil of  the  forge  that  bitter  winter  into  the  immor- 
tality of  undying  fame,  and  Valley  Forge,  as  time 
goes  on,  bids  fair,  in  the  opinion  of  the  observant 
English  historian,  to  be  the  most  celebrated  en- 
campment in  the  world's  history.  Whatever  the 
future  may  bring.  Valley  Forge  is  to-day  one  of 
Pennsylvania's  proudest  possessions,  and  in  ask- 


Address  before  the  General  Assembly  at  Valley   Forge,   May, 
1920. 


The  Lesson  of  Valley  Forge 

iiig  you  to  share  with  us  its  beauties  and  its  pre- 
cious memories,  we  are  asking  you  to  partake  of 
our  best. 

Valley  Forge  commended  itself  to  Washington 
as  the  site  for  his  winter  camp,  first  because  the 
rising  ground  made  it  possible  to  render  the  camp 
impregnable  against  any  sally  which  might  be  at- 
temped  by  the  British  troops  in  Philadelphia; 
secondly,  because  it  was  near  enough  Philadel- 
phia to  confine  the  raiding  expeditions  of  the 
British  to  a  narrow  area  and  preserve  rural  Penn- 
sylvania for  the  American  cause;  and  thirdly,  be- 
cause it  was  readily  accessible  from  York,  the  seat 
of  Congress,  and  from  the  Moravian  settlement 
of  Bethlehem,  where  the  general  military  hospital 
had  been  located,  and  commanded  an  open  road  to 
both  New  Jersey  and  to  the  sea.  Apart  from 
these  reasons,  there  was  little  to  commend  it  as  a 
place  of  winter  residence.  The  Marquis  Lafay- 
ette, writing  to  his  young  mfe,  January  6,  1778, 
said:  '^ Powerful  reasons  are  requisite  to  induce 
a  person  to  make  such  a  sacrifice — as  to  spend  the 
winter  at  Valley  Forge  in  barracks  scarcely  more 
cheerful  than  dungeons, ' '  and  yet  Lafayette  found 
those  powerful  reasons,  and  as  late  as  June  16th, 
writing  to  Madame  Lafayette  from  Valley  Forge, 
he  said,  "The  opening  campaign  does  not  allow 
us  to  retire.  I  have  always  been  perfectly  con- 
vinced that  by  ser\ing  the  cause  of  humanity  and 
that  of  America,  I  serve  also  the  interest  of 
France."  Would  that  Valley  Forge  might  con- 
vince the  Presbyterian  church  to-day  that  by  serv- 

414 


The  Lesson  of  Valley  Forge 

ing  the  cause  of  humanity  and  the  cause  of  sister 
nations  and  denominations,  she  serves  also  the  in- 
terest of  America  and  of  true  Presbyterianism. 

Perhaps  one  reason  that  Valley  Forge  has  such 
a  hold  upon  the  imagination  of  Americans  is  to  be 
found  in  the  list  of  the  personages  that  played  a 
part  upon  this  stage.  George  Washington  was 
soon  joined  at  Valley  Forge  by  Martha  Washing- 
ton, and  here  through  the  dark  winter  days  she 
cared  fpr  officers  and  men,  so  that  an  observer 
recorded  '*I  have  never  known  so  busy  a  woman." 
Here  was  Mad  Anthony  Wayne,  the  Pennsylvania 
surveyor,  much  at  home  in  his  native  country. 
Here  was  General  Nathanial  Green  and  his  wife, 
who  made  it  the  rule  through  the  long  winter  days 
that  no  one  who  had  a  good  voice  should  be  al- 
lowed to  refuse  to  sing.  Here  was  not  only  the 
Frenchman  Lafayette — one  of  the  few  men  whom 
Washington  could  trust  implicitly,  but  also  the 
Prussian  drillmaster  von  Steuben,  who  had  re- 
fused splendid  offers  from  the  Emperor  of  Ger- 
many, determined  never  to  draw  his  sword  again 
except  in  the  cause  of  liberty,  and  who  threw 
himself  so  whole-heartedly  into  the  task  of  turn- 
ing raw  recruits  into  seasoned  troops,  that  his 
leaven  was  soon  felt  throughout  the  American 
army.  Here  too  was  Light  Horse  Harry  Lee 
learning  the  art  of  war  with  his  dragoons,  and  un- 
consciously preparing  to  shape  the  destinies  of 
the  Republic  through  the  still  more  famous  son, 
who  came  to  him  when  he  was  pa§t  fifty,  and 
whom  he  named  Robert  E.  Lee, 


The  Lesson  of  Valley  Forge 

But  it  is  not  a  picture  of  fair  women  or  great 
leaders  which  we  associate  first  with  Valley  Forge. 
It  is  rather  a  picture  of  bleeding  feet  and  of 
barren  stretches  of  snow  marked  with  the  red 
streaks  of  blood.  It  is  a  picture  of  emaciated 
men,  drawing  their  belts  tighter  and  huddling 
around  a  fire  through  the  night  watches,  because 
it  was  too  cold  to  lie  down  to  sleep  without 
blankets.  It  is  a  picture  of  generals  sharing  the 
privations  with  their  troops  and  of  troops  remain- 
ing loyal  to  their  general,  in  spite  of  intrigue  in 
the  political  w^orld  without,  in  spite  of  cold  and 
hunger,  lack  of  clothing  and  no  pay. 

To  this  period  history  has  given  the  name, 
''The  Winter  of  Discontent."  Washington's 
fame  stood  at  its  lowest  ebb,  he  was  subject  to  the 
criticism  even  of  such  men  as  John  Adams,  and  his 
enemies  well-nigh  succeeded  in  driving  him  from 
the  public  service.  John  Adams  indeed  expressed 
the  hope  ''that  Congress  would  elect  their  gener- 
als annually,  and  then  some  great  men  would  be 
obliged  at  the  year's  end  to  go  home  and  serve 
the  nation  in  some  other  capacity  not  as  necessary, 
and  better  adapted  to  their  genius."  The  Penn- 
sylvania Legislature  lectured  Washington  for  re- 
tiring into  cantonments  among  the  luxuries  of 
Valley  Forge.  It  was  the  time  of  Washington's 
supreme  trial,  and  we  prize  Valley  Forge  and  the 
snows  of  Valley  Forge  as  the  Jews  prized  the 
fiery  furnace  and  the  lion's  den  of  their  Daniel,  be- 
cause here  the  moral  fiber  of  those  American  men 

416 


The  Lesson  of  Valley  Forge 

and  of  their  leader  was  made  manifest  under  the 
severest  tests. 

Americans  have  drawn  many  moral  lessons 
from  Valley  Forge.  Endurance  of  privation  and 
bodily  hardship  without  complaint,  loyalty  to  the 
nation's  leader,  patience  under  what  seemed  a 
policy  of  unwarranted  delay,  and  even  cowardice 
— these  are  some  of  the  lessons  which  every  school 
boy  knows.  But  we  who  are  older  ought  to  look 
deeper.  We  have  been  taught  to  believe  that  the 
sufferings  at  Valley  Forge  were  due  to  the  poverty 
of  the  revolutionists,  and  to  the  severity  of  the 
winter.  Trevelyan  shows  clearly  that  the  suffer- 
ings were  due  primarily  to  the  mistakes  made  by 
the  representatives  of  the  people  in  Congress  the 
preceding  summer.  It  is  not  generally  known 
that  the  lack  of  supplies  was  due  principally  to 
the  fact  that  Congress,  by  interfering  with  the  ad- 
ministration of  Colonel  Trumbull,  a  competent 
Commissary  General,  had  driven  him  and  his  as- 
sistant, the  Quartermaster  General,  from  the  pub- 
lic service  the  previous  summer,  and  that  the 
office  of  Quartermaster  General  remained  unfilled 
from  September,  1777,  to  April,  1778.  The  Com- 
mander-in-Chief himself  had  warned  Congress 
that  "military  arrangements,  like  the  mechanism 
of  a  clock,  must  necessarily  be  imperfect  and  dis- 
ordered by  want  of  a  part."  It  was  not  poverty, 
it  was  not  the  severity  of  the  winter,  it  was  pri- 
marily the  failure  of  Congress  to  appoint  and  trust 
a  Quartermaster  General,  that  left  the  Continental 

417 


The  Lesson  of  Valley  Forge 

Army  mthout  shirts  or  shoes,  at  Valley  Forge, 
while  hogsheads  of  raiment  and  footgear  lay  spoil- 
ing at  different  places  along  the  roads  and  in  the 
woods. 

Armies  do  not  feed  and  clothe  themselves  spon- 
taneously, and  neither  do  nations — as  the  Russians 
are  learning  to  their  cost,  and  as  this  nation  will 
soon  leani  through  bitter  experience,  unless  they 
profit  hj  the  lesson  of  Valley  Forge,  and  place  a 
higher  premium  on  the  services  of  great  leaders 
and  intelligent  experts  in  a  democracy.  America 
has  had  warnings  enough  of  the  impending  short- 
age of  food  and  fuel  next  winter,  yet  paralysis 
binds  our  governmental  machiner}^,  and  heedless 
of  the  lessons  of  Valley  Forge,  we  hasten  toward 
a  winter  of  suffering  and  mutual  recriminations. 
Republicans  and  Democrats  alike  scan  the  horizon 
for  the  approaching  dark  horse  who  is  to  save 
the  nation,  and  at  the  same  time,  men  go  up  and 
down  and  to  and  fro  through  the  nation  belittling 
their  leaders,  sowing  distrust,  stirring  up  envy, 
and  fettering,  in  every  way  in  their  power,  the 
effectiveness  of  the  strong  men  who  would  give 
their  services  for  the  public  weal,  if  we  would  but 
trust  them. 

America  has  now,  as  it  had  at  Valley  Forge,  a 
winter  of  discontent.  Cabals  are  as  ripe  as  they 
were  in  Conway's  time.  Good  men  are  as  be- 
wildered as  was  John  Adams. 

We  must  look  to  the  men  of  the  churches  to 
preach  a  gospel  which  will  temper  and  inspire 
our  patriotism  with  that  spirit  of  love  "which 

418 


The  Lesson  of  Valley  Forge 

seeketh  not  her  own,  thinketli  no  evil,  rejoiceth 
not  in  iniquity,  but  rejoiceth  in  the  truth,  which 
hopeth  all  things,  endureth  all  things,  believeth 
all  things."  And  at  length  the  long  Winter  of 
Discontent  will  break  for  us  as  it  broke  at  Valley 
Forge,  the  glad  news  of  the  signing  of  a  treaty 
in  Paris  will  come  to  us  as  it  came  to  the  watchers 
at  Valley  Forge  that  May  day  in  '78;  the  petty 
jealousies  and  machinations  of  Congress  which 
have  cost  the  nation  the  services  of  competent  men 
will  be  overwhelmed,  and  the  nation  will  follow  a 
chosen  leader  into  the  dawn  of  a  new  day  wherein 
dwelleth  righteousness. 

We  do  well  to  revisit  the  altars  of  national  sacri- 
fice; to  rekindle  our  faith  in  national  leaders;  to 
remind  ourselves  of  the  price  at  which  our  liberty 
was  purchased;  and  to  resolve  that  these  dead 
shall  not  have  suffered  and  died  in  vain.  The 
Pilgrim  Fathers  who  sought  afar  freedom  to  wor- 
ship God,  quickly  forgot  how  precious  a  boon  they 
had  attained,  and  drove  out  the  Quakers  and 
burned  their  witches.  We  Presbyterians,  the 
children  of  those  Scotch-Irish  who  in  the  days 
of  constitution  making  stood  firm  for  the  doctrine 
that  that  government  is  best  which  governs  least, 
must  recover  our  faith  in  the  individual,  must 
stop  looking  to  legislation  as  a  universal  panacea, 
must  again  raise  our  voices  for  individual  free- 
dom and  initiative,  against  the  onsweeping  doc- 
trine of  pure  democracy  and  mass  tyranny.  We 
shall  do  well,  as  Mr.  Latimer  suggests,  to  take  as 
our  campaign  slogan,  DO  IT  YOURSELF,  and 

419 


The  Lesson  of  Valley  Forge 

clinch  imr  argument  by  such  stirring  instances  as 
that  of  Dr.  Burke,  who  has  given  us  here  such  a 
remarkable  example  of  what  one  man  can  do. 
We,  who  like  Washington  love  and  admire  Lafay- 
ette, must  remember  that  Lafayette  was  the  most 
consistent  individualist  and  believer  in  human 
freedom  that  the  world  has  ever  known  (unless 
it  was  He  who  walked  in  Galilee).  The  faint- 
hearted Americans  of  this  generation  who  muzzle 
the  press,  who  distrust  the  people,  who  would 
license  education,  who  would  bind  their  Samsons, 
behead  their  John  the  Baptists,  stone  their 
Stephens,  and  imprison  their  Sauls,  should  come 
to  this  shrine  of  Valley  Forge,  and  in  prayer 
and  fasting  ask  themselves  what  Valley  Forge 
would  have  been  mthout  W^ashington,  what  Wash- 
ington would  have  been  without  Lafayette  and 
von  Steuben,  w^hat  Valley  Forge  might  have  been 
if  Colonel  Trumbull  had  been  left  free  to  work  with 
Washington.  After  the  cruel  tyrannies  enforced 
by  war,  we  need  a  new  birth  of  freedom,  a  new 
baptism  with  the  spirit  of  Lafayette,  a  new  em- 
phasis on  the  teaching  of  Christ,  Ye  shall  know 
the  truth  and  the  truth  shall  make  you  free. 

Let  us  on  this  consecrated  ground,  undismayed 
by  the  history  of  the  past  five  years,  unite  again 
in  the  prayer,  Thy  kingdom  come,  the  kingdom  of 
righteousness  and  peace  and  joy,  let  us  pray  with 
Elisha,  Lord,  open  the  eyes  of  the  young  man  that 
he  may  see  the  horses  and  chariots  of  fire  about 
us. 

THE   END 
420 


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